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  THE SMOKE

  THE REALLY STUPID THING about him, above all the other stupid things, was that he was a Millwall supporter. Every other Saturday he used to go to the match and sit in the directors’ box boozing it up and boozing it up after the match with the lads, with whom he liked to mingle. And after the festivities at the ground some of them would go back to the Steering Wheel with him and carry on boozing it up there for the rest of the evening.

  Johnny always parked his motor in the official car park. This particular night he came out and his mates got into their cars and he got into his and I waited until he got to Villiers Street before I sat up in the seat behind him and put the shooter into the back of his neck.

  “It’s me, Johnny,” I said, as his eyes confirmed it in the driving mirror.

  He didn’t do anything except continue driving, there being nothing else at the present moment for him to do.

  “Turn left into Plender Street,” I said, “and then get on to the Cambridge Road. You know the Cambridge Road, don’t you, Johnny?”

  He nodded, very slightly.

  He drove on for about a quarter of an hour before he spoke.

  “You’re being stupid,” he said. “You know that.”

  “I don’t think I’m the one that’s being stupid,” I said.

  “If anything happens to me, that’s being stupid,” he said.

  “If?” I said.

  He didn’t say anything for the rest of the journey, until we reached the caravan.

  THE SEA

  BUT AFTER THE SHOW she disappears again.

  After the show’s over, Eddie and some of his group join Howard and myself at the bar. Lesley and a couple of the others have left the stage and gone round the back for some reason. For a while I let Eddie bubble on about what a great session he’s just had, waiting for Lesley to reappear from backstage and join us at the bar. Which she doesn’t do. The other two members of the group join us, but not her. It isn’t necessary for me to ask because Eddie gets in first and one of his mates tells him she’s gone home. Eddie exercises what he imagines to be tact and doesn’t make any cracks that associate Lesley and myself.

  After we’ve had a few more drinks Eddie suggests to his boys that they pack up the gear and then drop down to the South for the last half-hour.

  “Are you coming down, Mr. Carson?” he asks me.

  “Yes,” I say to him, looking at my watch. “I’ll see you down there.”

  “Great,” he says. “We’ll only be about a quarter of an hour.”

  I walk along the mini-promenade and down the ramp and get into the Marina and turn it round and point it in the direction of the street and as I coast it towards the South I consider how her non-emergence from behind the stage is all part of the pattern, if I’m reading it right, the build-up, then the let-down. She may be in the South, she may not. She may come in later, she may not. But whatever she decides to do, all I can do is go along with it, exercise patience. After all, I’ve got plenty of time.

  I park outside of one of the double doors and go into the South.

  She isn’t there.

  I go over to the bar and order my drink. There’s twenty-five minutes left before time. Ten minutes later Eddie and the remaining members of the group who haven’t gone home to their old ladies come in. Eddie’s still in his Palladium mood and it isn’t long before he’s taking Jackie to one side and setting up an after-hours boozing session. Jackie agrees, probably because I’m around and my presence offers the prospect of a few fivers more than he’d actually take if it was only involving Eddie and his mates. But when eleven o’clock comes round and I tell them I’m going home for an early night Jackie’s face drops in ratio to what isn’t going to be in his till.

  I make my goodnights and walk out of the pub and get into the Marina and pull away from the curb and I’m a hundred yards down the street when from the back seat a voice says to me:

  “I hope it’s not any trouble, Mr. Carson.”

  I look in the driving mirror. In the darkness, her image is only recognisable by the shape of the stage wig she’s still wearing, defined against the sodium lighting beyond the rear window.

  THE SMOKE

  I WALKED ACROSS THE field behind Johnny, slowly. I had to, with his leg being the way it was. But being the way it was, he was hardly going to try and run off into the night. And since getting out of the motor I’d changed the Browning for a pump action.

  The only lights were the lights from the caravan. Mickey and Jean were waiting inside, as arranged, but only Jean knew who I was bringing.

  I tapped on the door and said to Johnny, “Think you’ll be able to manage the steps?”

  Johnny didn’t say anything.

  The door was opened by Mickey, the way I’d arranged it should be done with Jean. If Johnny’s appearance was going to cause an immediate happening, Jean knew what to do about that too.

  But when Mickey opened the door and illuminated Johnny and myself, he was his usual impassive self. He just stepped aside and let us both in.

  I closed the door behind us.

  “Sit down, Johnny,” I said, indicating a bench seat.

  Johnny sat down.

  Jean took another pump action from the cupboard next to her. Then I put mine down. Mickey didn’t do or say anything.

  On the circular table, which was bolted to the floor by a single central support, were a couple of coils of rope. Next to the ropes was a can of paraffin and a roll of cotton wool.

  “Tie Johnny’s left leg to the table,” I said to Mickey. “To the support, at the bottom.”

  Mickey took the rope and did as I’d asked him. When he’d done that I tore a handful of cotton wool off the roll, unscrewed the lid of the can and soaked the cotton wool in paraffin. Then I dropped down on to one knee and rolled up Johnny’s trouser leg and dabbed paraffin all over the lower part of his artificial limb, faintly obscene in its pink, perfectly shaped hairlessness. When I’d soaked enough paraffin onto it, I got up and went and sat down on the bench seat opposite him.

  Mickey just remained standing where he was, quiet. Jean stood behind him, slightly to his right.

  “Well,” I said to Johnny, “there’s no point in fucking about, is there?”

  Johnny shook his head.

  “How long had you had the black on Ray?”

  “About two years.”

  “Apparently you all found it very funny.”

  Johnny didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, all that money of mine, going into your back pockets. That’s what I heard. All highly amusing.”

  “How’d you hear?”

  “Does that really interest you?”

  He didn’t reply straightaway. Then he said, “It won’t do you any good, topping me. They’ll have you for it, one way or another.”

  “Who says I’m going to top you? I just want you to verify one or two things I’ve happened to hear.”

  “Well, I verified them,” he said. “Now what happens?”

  “You haven’t verified them all.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  “Like Glenda, for instance.”

  “What about her?”

  “How you got to know we were going to talk to her.”

  “We didn’t. That wasn’t down to us.”

  “And like how Ray knew we were looking out for what he’d been doing.”

  “How should I know? He just found out, didn’t he?”

  “He just found out, and you didn’t have anything to do with Glenda?”

  “Right,” Johnny said.

  “Is that what you’re saying?”

  He didn’t answer. I took out a box of matches and put them beside me on the seat.

  THE SEA

  SHE STANDS BY THE piano as I pour the drinks.

  “Where’s the photograph gone?” she says.

  “It’s being re-framed.”

  “I see,” she says, getting my point, turning towards me and looking at me for the fi
rst time without being behind her dark glasses.

  I offer her her drink.

  “You didn’t take your clothes off,” I say to her.

  She looks at me, impassive.

  “I mean,” I tell her, “you didn’t change out of your stage gear. Not even the wig. Although I notice the Afghan doesn’t change.”

  She takes the drink from me.

  “Perhaps I imagined you might prefer me in this gear, being the type of man you are.”

  “And what type of man is that?”

  “Your type,” she says, drifting over to the shelf unit.

  “And why should you take any interest in what I might prefer?”

  “I wonder,” she says, running a finger along one of the racks of records.

  It’s as I thought it was going to be. Almost on, almost off.

  “Put one on if you want,” I tell her.

  “I was thinking it was a bit quiet,” she says.

  I watch her while she chooses a record.

  “You went to great pains not to let anyone know you were coming here.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say great pains.”

  “Why does it matter?” I say. “I would have thought you were the kind of girl that didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought.”

  “Would you?” she says, sliding a Carly Simon record out of its sleeve. “You’ve formed an opinion already, have you?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  She puts the record on the turntable.

  “How do you know it wasn’t just on the spur of the moment? I saw your car outside the South and decided to give you a surprise.”

  “I don’t know what you decided to do.”

  She flicks the mechanism and the arm descends on the record. Carly Simon’s deep cold voice echoes round the room. For a moment or two Lesley listens to the voice, making mental comparisons.

  “In any case,” she says, “I meant what I said at lunchtime. I don’t want Eddie thinking I’m just another of the group’s arrangements. It’s going to be a crappy enough season as it is.”

  She sits down by the unlit fire.

  “I meant to ask you about that,” I say, going over to the drinks. “A girl like you. You could work anywhere you wanted.”

  THE SMOKE

  “I’M TELLING YOU,” JOHNNY said. “All right, Arthur Philips and that stroke we tried to pull there was down to us; I mean, all right. And we been fucking you up and down behind your back with Ray. But when you come in the other night and put Glenda down to us, you got it all wrong. Right, it would have been a good idea, use her to point Parsons at you, but we could have done that without bothering to take her overseas to do it.”

  “No,” I said, “because you didn’t know we were on to Ray.”

  “Right,” Johnny says, “you see? We didn’t know you were on to Ray.”

  “Or his involvement with you.”

  “Right.”

  “Except,” I said, “that you did.”

  “You what?”

  “You did know,” I said. “You know all about the matter under discussion.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You knew what you were talking about when you talked to Wally Barling.”

  “Wally Barling?”

  “Wally Barling. You remember Wally, Johnny? Farlow’s grass. You and your brothers excluded, of course.”

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  “You may not have realised it when you were chatting with him the other evening, but he’s not Farlow’s grass at all. He’s been Collins’s grass ever since England had a decent football team.”

  Johnny didn’t say anything. I looked at Mickey.

  “Did you know that, Mickey?”

  “No,” Mickey said. “I didn’t know that.”

  THE SEA

  “DO YOU MIND IF we light the fire?” she says.

  “The central heating seems to be working all right.”

  “I know. But looking at an empty fireplace makes me feel cold.”

  I kneel down and pick up the box of kitchen matches off the hearth and strike a match and light the fire. The newsprint crackles like the sound of small bones breaking.

  “You were saying,” I say as I stand up, “what, with your talent, you’re doing taking up with a group like Eddie’s.”

  “I wasn’t,” she says. “You were asking.”

  The flames settle into the bark of the logs and some of the bark flakes off like dead skin.

  “I mean, you got relatives in this area, or what?”

  “I haven’t relatives in any area. I’m a single girl.”

  “So why have you ended up here?”

  “Why not? You’ve got to end up somewhere.”

  I pour us both another drink.

  “You’re hardly of an age to end up anywhere.”

  “Like you, you mean?”

  “I’m only here temporarily.”

  “Like me, passing through?”

  “You said you’ve ended up here.”

  “No, you said that,” she says.

  I hand her her refilled glass.

  “Anyway,” she says. “All these questions. I could be asking you the same ones.”

  “You could.”

  “I mean, I could be asking you who you are. Why you choose to spend your time in this dead-and-alive hole.”

  “Perhaps you don’t ask,” I say to her, “because you think you already know.”

  She looks at me, blank.

  “Know?” she says. “Know what?”

  I smile at her.

  “Never mind,” I say. “I don’t think you’d be that stupid. Not a second time.”

  “A second time what?”

  I shake my head.

  “Forget it. It’s just a thought I had.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. About why I interest you.”

  “You interest me, do you?”

  “Well,” I say, “what other reason would you be here for?”

  “Perhaps it’s just for the sake of something to do.”

  “You mean, a way of passing the time?”

  “That’s right. You don’t necessarily have to be interested in someone to pass the time with them.”

  “Not necessarily,” I say, “no.”

  THE SMOKE

  “YOU SEE,” I SAID to Johnny, “even Mickey didn’t know Wally Barling was on our team.”

  “That fucking bastard,” Johnny says, “I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Johnny?”

  Johnny became silent.

  “And I bet,” I said, “I bet Mickey’ll be even more interested when you tell him what you told Wally.”

  “Listen—”

  “That’s what we’re doing, Johnny. Listening.”

  I picked up the matchbox and shook it in the palm of my hand.

  “I didn’t tell him nothing, honest,” Johnny said.

  “You didn’t tell him, like, how you and your brothers knew we were on to Ray. That that information came from Mickey. Because you’d been blacking him for over a year, because you happened to come across some pictures he had taken in his spare time with a fourteen-year-old who hasn’t seen the light of day for the last twelve months.”

  Mickey looked at Johnny. Behind Mickey, Jean held the pump action pointed straight at the middle of Mickey’s back.

  “Is that what he said, guv’nor?” Mickey said.

  “That’s what you said, Johnny, wasn’t it?”

  “I never.”

  “Didn’t you? And you didn’t tell him that the only way you got to Glenda before I did was because Mickey phoned you up before we set off on our way. You didn’t tell him that either, did you, Johnny?”

  “Look, I’m telling you—”

  “Oh, I’m forgetting,” I said. “You also said that Mickey topped Ray, because we were getting too close. But that Mickey didn’t know about Glenda until I called her up. And when he phoned you up to get there first, you decid
ed to use her to try and drop me in it. That Mickey furnished you with the effects he’d taken off Ray’s body.”

  “Listen—”

  Mickey interrupted him, very quiet, standing very still.

  “Is that what you told him, Johnny?” he said.

  “Mickey, listen—”

  I stood up and took out a match and Johnny stopped talking and looked at the match as I held it against the striker. The caravan was full of silence.

  “Guv’nor,” Mickey said.

  “Yes, Mickey?”

  “You don’t believe all this shit, do you?”

  “Well, let me put it this way. I wouldn’t like to think you’ve been slagging me behind my back after all I’ve done for you over the years. I’d hate to think after all that I couldn’t trust you.”

  “I thought all that was understood between us.”

  “That’s what I thought, yes.”

  “But now you don’t.”

  “Well, I’m just going to find out, aren’t I?” I said, striking the match.

  THE SEA

  “ALL RIGHT,” I SAY, “if you don’t want to tell me why you’ve chosen this place, where were you before?”

  “Before?”

  “Where were you working?”

  “All over.”

  “In London?”

  “I tried London, yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “What didn’t? A chapter of accidents.”

  “Did you get close to making it?”

  “I think so.”

  “What went wrong? It can’t have been your ability.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “What, then?”

  “Like I said. A chapter of accidents. Instead of being in the right place at the right time I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”