The Graft (16 page)

He was trying to reason with her even though he knew he was wasting his time.

She changed tack then, seeing her chance.

‘I suppose I’d better get used to being on me own, get used to being without me boy. It’s all right for you, ain’t it? You’ve got two more.’

She sat on the edge of the sofa and he could see the varicose veins in her ankles and the pitted skin between her toes where she sometimes injected herself. Her feet were a disgrace. The nails were dirty and the hard skin was yellowed and looked as if it was decaying. Those feet had rested on his calves the night before and he felt the bile rising inside him at the thought. It was as if he was seeing Jude for the first time. Really seeing her, and the life she led.

‘I am going, Jude, and nothing you say will change that. I’ll pop back in the week.’

He took a wad of money from his pocket and thrust it towards her. He could see a couple of fifty-pound notes among the fivers and expected her to snatch it from his hand as usual but for once she didn’t. It was a calculated gesture and they both knew it.

‘I don’t need money, I need company.’

He shook his head sadly and dropped the wad on the floor.

‘What you need, sweetheart, is someone to get stoned with and it ain’t going to be me.’

Jude saw the determination in his eyes. Sighing, she turned from him, stabbing the cigarette out in the saucer that passed for an ashtray.

‘You walk out of here now and that is it, Tyrell, I mean it.’

Her voice was low. When she looked up at him again he could see the determination on her face. It was the look she always wore when she was out of gear or needed money for something, the look that said she would get what she wanted. As she invariably did. She was stronger at such times than anyone realised, even herself.

‘I’m not joking, Tyrell. If you walk out on me now, you’ll regret it.’

‘Why? What are you going to do, Jude, kill yourself?’

He knew she had used that one on their son, knew she had made him toe the line with that threat on many occasions, especially Christmases and birthdays when he had been due to be with his father and his brothers. Unless she had a bloke or a new dealer who would allow her plenty of credit. Then she couldn’t wait to get him out of the door.

She nodded then.

‘What else is there for me now?’

Her voice was low and hurt. She sounded completely serious.

Tyrell sighed and said sarcastically, ‘You could pick that money up from the floor and get yourself some gear. That’s what you usually do, ain’t it? That’s what you would be doing if Sonny was still alive.’

He could not believe what he had just said and neither could Jude. All those years of trying to stop her from killing herself with drugs and now he was actually advising her to take them?

‘You bastard!’

He shrugged.

‘I just can’t do this any more, Jude. Don’t you realise that I have lost a child as well? My first-born son was buried yesterday and I really don’t have to listen to all this shit any more. As you so rightly pointed out, I have two other boys who, incidentally, really loved their brother and will miss him. I think they might need me as well today. The world, believe it or not, Jude, does not revolve solely around you.’

In a part of her brain she knew he was right, but she wasn’t one to listen to the voice of her conscience. Jude only ever did what she wanted and only understood what she allowed herself to.

Tyrell saw her as she came towards him and put his hands up to defend himself, but her nails caught his face anyway before he grabbed her by the wrists. He struggled with her for a few seconds before she sagged at the knees. He kept hold of her wrists as she dropped on to the floor. She was crying once more.

‘I can’t cope without him, not today, Tyrell. I can’t go on without him, I can’t.’

He pulled her up gently and hugged her to him. He was nearly crying himself as he pleaded with her. ‘Please stop this, Jude. Please give me a fucking break. I can’t police you all the time, girl, like poor Sonny did. I have got to get home, can’t you understand that? My family need me as well.’

They were both startled by the front door opening then and turned to look towards the doorway of the living room. Three young men walked in. Tyrell recognised them as friends of Sonny’s. They had been at the funeral the day before.

‘How the fuck did you lot get in?’

His voice was harsh. He wasn’t sure he wanted these youngsters walking in and out as it pleased them. Didn’t Jude have any idea at all about the real world? He pushed her away from him gently and she slumped back on to the couch, leaning forward awkwardly to pick up the money lying on the floor.

‘What are you? Fucking deaf? How did you get in?’

‘Through the front door.’

His demand was answered by the tallest boy who spoke to Tyrell with no respect whatsoever.

‘You want me to mash your face, boy?’

The boy blanched at the annoyance in the large Rasta’s voice. He knew that Sonny’s father could be a handful and wished he had remembered that before he had spoken. But the urge to show off in front of his friends was paramount in his life and he was now paying the price.

‘Leave them alone, Tyrell. Anyway, I thought you were leaving.’

Jude’s voice was dismissive and he felt an urge to slap her face but calmed himself down enough to say almost normally, ‘Of course. You were just seeing me out, weren’t you, when we were so rudely interrupted.’

Even Jude managed a smile at the tone of his voice.

Tyrell looked the boys over and sighed inwardly. These were his son’s friends and he had no interest in them whatsoever. You could see what they were just by looking at them. The small blond one was already stoned out of his nut.

‘Were you good friends with Sonny Boy?’

The question was directed to the tall boy with the surly face and short cropped hair.

Gino nodded.

‘You knew everything about him, I expect?’

‘ ’Course.’

The words conveyed the message ‘more than you did’.

‘Then where did he get the gun, clever bollocks?’

Tyrell turned to a white-faced Jude as he said, ‘Put the kettle on, I think I might stay for a while after all.’

Chapter Eight

‘For fuck’s sake, Nick, you’re starting early even for you.’

He swallowed down his vodka and burped loudly.

‘Who are you, me mum?’

He pushed himself up from the table and wandered towards the bar. The head barmaid Candice was watching him warily. She could feel the anger coming off him and sighed heavily. It was going to be another one of those days.

There had been plenty of them lately. It was as if Nick had moved into the pub. He was there when she went home and there when she arrived in the morning. It was getting wearing. She had her own little scams afoot and didn’t need the added pressure.

‘I feel like I am, having to keep reminding you about your drinking and not eating and the fact that you keep starting fights with the customers . . .’

She watched his reflection in the bar mirror. He rolled his eyes and she felt a moment’s anger.

‘Shag off, Candice, for fuck’s sake. Give me a break from your poxy voice. I might as well be at home with Tammy.’

Candice grinned at him as she said seriously, ‘Now come on, Nick, I ain’t that bad.’

He was chuckling as he replied, ‘If she heard you say that, you’d be spitting teeth for a week.’

‘You seem to forget me and Tammy go way back. She wouldn’t pick a fight with me.’

He knew it was true. No one in their right mind would pick a fight with Candice; she was like a bloke in the aggression stakes. In fact it was one of the reasons she ran the bar so well. No one would willingly take her on now. Too many had tried over the years. He liked her, always had. She was friendly without the usual female fluttering. What you saw was what you got, and she was a good-looking woman.

‘Lovely tits’ was something he had heard said of her many times over the years. He had also heard her favourite answer to anyone who had the gall to say it to her face. Unrepeatable though the answer often was it had always made him smile.

‘Come on, have a cup of coffee with me, eh?’

He shook his head.

‘Have a vodka with me instead.’

She sighed again, pulling down her cropped top and then hitching up her skin-tight jeans. She yawned loudly as she said: ‘Fuck off. Unlike you, Nick, I have to do a day’s work.’

‘Come out the back and have a shag then.’

Candice grinned.

‘You’d get a shock if I said yes, wouldn’t you?’

‘Too right I would. After what I just put away, I couldn’t get it up if you paid me, love.’

She touched him gently on the arm as she said, ‘Come on, have a coffee with me then get yourself down to the site office.’

As she spoke George Michael came over the bar courtesy of the new sound system. He was singing ‘Careless Whisper’ and Nick suddenly felt the urge to cry.

That was happening a lot lately.

Shaking her head, Candice walked back behind the bar. Taking out her handbag, she cut two smooth lines of top-grade cocaine expertly.

‘Come on, Nick, snort this. It’ll sort your head out and sober you up a bit.’

He minced behind the bar like a woman and she laughed out loud. After he’d snorted both lines he said loudly in an American accent, ‘I have an eighth in me pocket. You can have it, sweetheart, for being employee of the month.’

Candice wiped the excess from around his nostril and laughed: ‘Go home, go to work, just fucking
go
somewhere!’

As he put his jacket on she sang along to the music. He was opening the door to leave when she shouted, ’Ain’t you forgotten something?’

Nick raised an eyebrow quizzically.

‘Employee of the month?’

She held her hand out to him and he placed the small package in it. Candice grinned. It was a heavy eighth, exactly what she needed for a day in the bar.

It was strange seeing Nick snort. Usually he hated it around him, but she guessed rightly that he was feeling things still and in that way she felt sorry for him. He had been through the mill lately, but he was also rich and respected. You couldn’t have it all ways as Nick Leary would eventually find out.

When she heard his car pull away she picked up her mobile and tapped in a number. ‘He’s on his way and he’s half cut again.’

She turned the phone off without even bothering to wait for an answer. She cut herself a line and snorted it quickly. Once the regulars arrived it would be like a mad house and she would have to talk twenty to the dozen and serve three people at once. Just as she wiped her nose and rubbed her lips together to moisten her lipstick the first customer arrived.

Candice smiled at him and poured him his usual drink. It was a good job she had here and she knew it, but if the word on the street was true then Nick was pissing it all away.

She hoped he got it sorted sooner rather than later. He was starting to get on her nerves.

 
‘I mean, who would give my Sonny a gun?’

‘Oh, leave it out, Tyrell! And you call yourself a fucking Rasta? You can buy a gun in the local pub for a fucking score.’

‘Not that kind of gun you couldn’t, Jude. It was top quality merchandise, and it had been used in an armed robbery. I think we can safely assume the police believe our son was involved in that too. It’s one of the reasons the CPS wouldn’t prosecute. So don’t talk to me about guns that cost a fucking score!’

Jude was sick of the whole conversation.

‘What good would it even do finding out where the gun come from, eh? You want to sort someone out, you go and see Leary. He’s the one who killed Sonny.’

‘Not that fucking tune again, Jude. You can’t blame the man for protecting his own! How many times . . . The gun was high-velocity. If Sonny had shot it he would have sprayed the fucking place with enough bullets to wipe out this block of flats!’

Jude rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

‘Precisely. So why didn’t he then?’

Tyrell shook his head so hard his dreads slapped his face. ’Are you telling me that Sonny should have shot the man? Is that what you’re saying?’

Jude sat down, defeated.

‘Of course not . . . I don’t know what I mean, Tyrell. Just fuck off, will you? All you’re doing is depressing me.’

He took a deep breath to calm the rapid beating of his heart.

‘So none of you has any idea where he got the gun from?’

The tall boy left the room. Tyrell could hear him passing water in the bathroom in short staccato bursts. He wondered where the boy got the money for the crack he was so obviously on.

He waited for the boy to come back. Instead he walked from the flat, his footsteps loud as he thumped heavily down the flights of stairs.

‘Where’s he gone then?’

No one answered.

‘This is a fucking joke, Jude, but I will find out what the score is, and believe me, when I do you had better be ready for fireworks.’