The Graft (5 page)

She wore her crown well and they respected that.

’All right, Tam?’

This from Melanie Darby. She was second fiddle to Tammy and actually a nice person. Out of them all it was Melanie she would call the closest to her. Melanie’s husband Ray was into all sorts and no one asked her about any of it.

Tammy sat down and sighed dramatically.

‘It’s been a nightmare, girls.’

Fiona Thomson pushed a glass of champagne into her hand. Tammy noticed it was a very expensive label and realised she was paying for this lunch. Nick would go mad but she would cross that bridge when she came to it. Some of her girls’ lunches came to nearly a grand and even though they were well heeled it sent Nick off the deep end; he was mean in some respects.

But he didn’t understand, she had a front to keep up and giving expensive lunches was part of that front. Ordering expensive wine gave Tammy a buzz, and she loved the looks on her friends’ faces when they realised what it was all costing. They were the elite of their crowd and she was the queen. And being queen didn’t come cheap, whatever her husband thought.

She was just finishing her tale of woe when Fiona said gently, ‘So they ain’t going to do Nick then?’

Tammy placed her glass of champagne on the table and gave her a look that would have floored most women. Fiona, though, was made of sterner stuff than most.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Look, Tams, all I am saying is, my old man said Nick could get done for manslaughter . . .’

Tammy, however, was one glass of champagne away from fighting her and it showed. The other women all tried to shut Fiona up with looks and waves of their hands.

’And your old man would know all about that, wouldn’t he? Being a bank robber and all that.’

Fiona laughed.

‘It’s hardly a secret, Tams. He done his time, love, so yeah, he would know what he’s talking about. And he said that if Nick had any brains he should get himself a good brief.’

‘My Nick’s got brains, love, he knows the score. So tell your old man not to worry about him, all right? If he had any sense he’d worry about himself, love, or that’s what my Nick says anyway.’

This statement was loaded and Fiona sighed.

‘Whatever you say, Tams. I was just saying, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, well, don’t. My Nick was only defending his family. That ponce had a fucking loaded gun. You remember that, won’t you, when you’re gossiping about it? He wasn’t holding up his local Tesco’s, like some I could mention.’

All the women fell quiet now. Tammy had gone too far and she knew it. She waved over the waiter and ordered two more bottles of champagne. At nearly four hundred quid a pop it was one of her most expensive lunches yet. But Tammy, who’d been on the verge of leaving before this contretemps, was now going to sit it out to the death.

Her husband had his faults and they were legion, but she was fucked if Fiona was going to get the better of her. Or, more to the point, hers.

She smiled nastily as she said, ‘Better get on the phone, Fiona. See if your mum can pick up the kids. After all, you don’t have a nanny, do you, and time’s moving on.’

Fiona grinned happily. Nothing fazed her, which was another thing that annoyed the life out of Tammy.

‘It’s half-term, ain’t it? They’re in Spain with me mother-in-law. ’

The knives were well and truly out now and the other women sat back to enjoy the spectacle.

They were not disappointed.

 
Nick was at the police station with his golfing buddy, DI Rudde. The two men had been acquaintances for years. Now they were almost bosom pals, though they didn’t let that on to anyone else, another unwritten law.

‘So what’s the score, Peter?’

Rudde sighed.

‘You’re home and dry, more or less. I’ve said I do not feel there are any reasonable grounds for a prosecution against you. Sonny Boy was a known face, a little villain, and he had a loaded gun. I said I had no doubt he would have used it if necessary. He was a suspect in a stabbing a few months ago. I can’t see the CPS making any case against you.’

Nick visibly relaxed.

‘I still feel bad, Pete.’

‘I know, mate, but that’s because you’re a decent person - more than could be said for that little fucker. He had no chance, did he? Mother’s a junkie, his life’s been one long round of trouble and aggravation. This was bound to happen one day, it just happened sooner rather than later.

‘I see them all coming through here, Nick, the no hopers. I feel sorry for some of them, but, at the end of the day, they’re all accidents waiting to happen. You have the law on your side as far as I am concerned. It says you can use
reasonable
force to eject an intruder from your home. If that intruder has a gun then you are within your rights to disarm him, as you did.’

‘I didn’t just disarm him, I disabled him! He’s going to die, ain’t he?’

Peter Rudde didn’t answer him.

’Ain’t he!’

Nick was shouting now.

‘I need to know, Peter. When are they going to turn the machine off?’

He patted Nick’s arm.

’As far as I know, his dad is back from Jamaica and he’s taking over. The mother couldn’t decide what shoes to wear without a fix of some sort.’

The detective watched his friend relax back into his chair.

‘Come on, let’s go and have a beer, eh?’

Nick nodded sadly.

‘You’ll let me know as soon as . . .’

‘ ’Course I will. Now come on, a large Scotch and you’ll be right as rain.’

It was a stupid thing to say and they both knew it.

 
‘Mum, can we go back to school tomorrow?’

Tammy looked at her eldest son but she wasn’t seeing him. She was still reliving the insult she had received earlier in the day from one of her so-called friends.

‘You what, son?’

Nicholas Leary Junior sighed heavily.

‘I said, can we go back to school tomorrow?’

Tammy nodded absently.

‘Wait till your dad gets in, he’ll tell you.’

‘It’s boring, Mum, we need to get back into a routine . . .’

‘Let your dad sort it out, OK?’

Nicholas looked at her once more and said flatly, ‘We need to get back to normal sooner rather than later.’

‘I thought it was half-term?’

In her drink-addled brain Tammy dimly remembered what Fiona had said.

‘Not for private schools, Mum. We were off all last week, remember?’

It was said sarcastically and this annoyed Tammy as her son knew it would.

She shouted at him then.

‘Who are you, Nicky, fucking Stephen Hawking? Mr fucking Know All?’

He sighed once more.

‘Oh, forget it!’

His complete dismissal of her sent Tammy into a frenzy of anger.

‘Your father could be done for fucking murder, you selfish little fucker!’

Nicholas Leary Junior at twelve years old was already a force to be reckoned with in this house. He had all his mother’s acerbic wit and his paternal grandfather’s utter disregard for others’ feelings. Tammy’s mother adored him. His own mother gravitated between wanting to kiss him and wanting to kick him all day long.

Today she was upset after learning that her husband could still be done for manslaughter. This had scared her, especially as she knew she couldn’t cope without Nick around even though she had spent her whole married life pretending he was nothing more than an albatross round her neck.

But her friends had sounded as if they knew what they were talking about and suddenly the thought of losing her husband was scaring Tammy all over again. He had done what he thought was right; could they really lock him away for protecting his family? According to her so-called friends they could. They could do exactly that.

For the first time in years Tammy really saw her home and it was beautiful. Her Nick had given them the best there was and she had never really appreciated it until now. Nick drove her mad. He was a flirt, he was a fucker, he was a drinker - but he was a grafter, and he had grafted for her and her kids. For the first time ever she envisioned life without him and the picture in her mind was bleak.

Nicholas Junior left the room and went back to his brother James. The nanny had already gone home. Nick Senior would not let her live in, said if she did it would be too easy to leave the boys, and he had been proved right.

Nicholas Junior knew that as much as his mother loved him and his brother, she would go out at the drop of a hat. Tammy would go to the opening of an envelope as his father always pointed out when they rowed.

Now, though, it wasn’t such a problem. At twelve he felt he was adult enough to take care of his little brother. So his mother left the house without a backward glance these days. Years before, though, when she would leave them with their granny, Dad would go mad and tear out of the house in search of her, his own mother admonishing him as he wheel-spinned off the drive, ranting and raving about his lazy mare of a wife.

Nicholas Junior sighed.

He wished his parents could be happy, reach a compromise of some sort. But he knew that the way they carried on was more from habit these days, and it saddened him sometimes.

He knew they loved one another dearly, but they talked to each other as if they were mortal enemies. It was awful to watch and to listen to; they scored points off each other constantly. You could almost feel the despair coming from his mother sometimes, and the complete and utter bafflement of his father. He gave his wife everything except his time.

His granny had explained to Nicholas Junior her thoughts on the subject, confided in him even. She said she worried that, when married couples started to ridicule one another, they would eventually lose respect for one another. Once gone it was hard to get that respect back apparently. Granny Leary thought his mother and father had spent so long taking the piss out of each other in a good-natured way that they didn’t take each other seriously any more. It made sense to Nicholas Junior. He had watched them, observed them really, deliberately spied on them in fact. There was love there, he knew that, but not the kind of love that married people should feel. They were more like brother and sister.

His granny said that happened in lots of marriages, it was the day to day that killed romance, but one day something would happen to make them realise that all you had in life
was
your family. Your children, and the years you had shared.

He hoped she was right.

He hoped this tragedy would make them see the error of their ways, appreciate what they had in each other. Because the worst of it all was, they actually thought they were set like a jelly, that they were happy.

It was almost painful to watch them being happy sometimes.

His brother James was asleep and Nicholas automatically covered him up with a blanket even though the night was warm.

He thought of the boy who had died and pushed it from his mind instantly. They had enough to contend with as it was.

 
‘So basically, what you are saying is, an Englishman’s home is his castle?’

Nick nodded sadly.

‘I suppose so. The fact that the boy was black had nothing to do with it. I didn’t know anything about him until after the event. When the paramedics removed his balaclava . . .’

He was paranoid about anything in his story appearing suspect. The girl nodded sympathetically, but he was on to the press by then. What you said and what was actually printed were often completely different things.

‘How do you feel about the boy now?’

It was how she said ‘boy’ that really rankled. It made Sonny Hatcher sound like a ten year old.

Nick sighed.

‘I am sorry from the heart for his condition, but at the end of the day he was armed and I wasn’t . . .’

The girl grinned at him quizzically and pointed one well-manicured finger at him as she said in her ultra-posh voice: ‘But actually you
were
armed, weren’t you?’

Her voice was harsher now. Challenging him.

‘You had a baseball bat.’

He stared into her pretty blue eyes. Shame she was half the size of a house, she could be good-looking otherwise. But he made himself calm down, bit back the retort that sprang to his lips.

‘Well, all I can say is, love, my baseball bat wasn’t loaded with bullets like his gun was.’

He stood up abruptly.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’

He had annoyed her and he knew it but he was past caring. They were all carrion only he had never realised that before.

As he sat in his lounge now and watched the tape he wondered what on earth had made him do those interviews with the press. He saw his own guilt reflected in his face as the reporter spoke to him. Yet when it had hit the news it had all looked so different. They had cut and chopped the interview about so that he looked like a fine upstanding citizen, only doing what anyone would have done faced with the same circumstances.