Highbridge Read online

  He knew he could no more hold his own in whatever corridors of power, meeting rooms or conferences the suited brigade were heading off to face, just as he doubted he could survive something like Iraq or Afghanistan, as Luke appeared to have done. But then again, Joey thought, one of life’s biggest ironies was that Luke probably wouldn’t last five minutes on a United Nations building site. A bit like a cop being thrown into prison. Without the authority of greater firepower, he’d soon become an Equal Opportunities or Health and Safety casualty. That was something Joey was determined never to become. Which was how the catch-up conversation had turned to why, in all walks of life, someone usually needed to give someone a good slapping. When you couldn’t turn to, or rely on, the so-called forces of law and order or the rules and regs that governed life. When Health and Safety could stop you climbing a ladder, but offered no guidance on what to do when you were shoved into a room by three guys demanding a commission on everything you earned or they’d kill you, your wife and kids and dog. Or when everyone knew who the druggies were but kept saying they had to have proof.

  That was the common bond, from battlefield to playing field. When natural justice had to take second place to bureaucratic process. That was what had pushed them over the line. Especially when it came too close to Joey’s own front door. When it put Tanya in danger. That’s how he had got involved. When Tanya, like Janey before her, had found herself fighting off some knife-wielding druggie. When Luke asked if it was time to act. Would he like him to sort it out? It was one simple word. Yes. That was it. That was how it all started. That one word. And what he was keeping from Natasha.

  His phone vibrated just as the train hurtled into the Kilsby Tunnel, the twin vibrations causing Joey to jump. He looked at the text. Natasha’s reply. YOU 2. MORE EACH WEEK. MUST TALK TONIGHT. LXXT. Must talk? He looked at the time. 6.15. Too early for the school run, he thought. Guess I didn’t hide things too well after all. He went to reply but whilst the tunnel was one of the engineering wonders built by Robert Stephenson on the London–Birmingham line in the mid-nineteenth century, with the gradients, bends and railway bed still able to facilitate today’s inter-city flyers, Stephenson never envisaged mobile phone signals. Joey stared at the No Service icon. At least it would give him time to think.

  ‘He’s up to something, Sean. I know your Joey. And his mate Luke. He’s always been trouble. He was only back five minutes and he and Joey were in the police station.’

  Sean was trying to keep up with this trail of feminine intuition as he dried off after his morning waterfall shower. He was going in late, to give Sandra a lift. ‘Is all this coming from seeing Joey talking to Luke in Sanderson’s car park the other day?’

  ‘It was the way they were talking.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The way the kids do when they don’t want us to know what they’re up to.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. I could throw you a “so what”, if you like? But what’s really going on here is displacement.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’ Sandra stood, with her old Armani trouser suit in one hand while she held in her stomach and looked in the mirror wall that lined their dressing room. If the Anglomania had been a bit tight, what was this going to be like after a couple of years?

  ‘That.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You having to go in and see the VAT man. So you think you have to squeeze into your old business suit. That’s what’s getting to you.’

  Sandra let her stomach go. He was right. ‘You want me to look the part, don’t you?’

  ‘You do in whatever you wear. Anywhere. Any time. And,’ he added, slightly wearily, ‘we do own the place. You can wear what you like.’

  ‘I know. But I also know,’ she added, pulling her stomach in again, ‘I want to look the part.’

  Sean put his arm round her waist and pecked her neck. ‘I love every bit of you. Every inch means a special memory.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Too many memories. And I’ve always hated this wall of mirror.’

  Sean didn’t want to remind her that she designed the dressing area, so tried more displacement theory. ‘I don’t know why you don’t just buy yourself a new suit. I’m sure no one would notice you’ve gone from size 12 to size 12.5 or whatever size you’ve ballooned to over the past fifteen years or so. What time’s he coming?’

  ‘Nine. And that’s another thing. It’s not a him. It’s a “Miss”. Bound to be some size 8 stick insect.’

  ‘What time will you be free, then?’

  ‘Fancy taking me to lunch?’

  ‘In that old suit? Not anywhere public, but er, I was wondering if you’d fancy dropping in to something at lunchtime.’ He saw that she had picked up his hesitancy, although, fortunately, a mark on the Armani sleeve had her full attention so he tried to make it sound as casual as he could. ‘You know, I’m letting the anti-drugs partnership use the demonstration area to show people what cannabis plants actually look like.’

  A lick and dab at the sleeve. ‘Why?’

  ‘So they know what they are looking for. And can spot the decoys. We’re going to put the real ones in among a few others like tomatoes or lupins. And a few more exotic varieties like Cleome or Castor Bean. To see if people can actually spot the real thing.’

  Having salvaged the Armani sleeve, Sandra had moved to the shoe museum, as Sean called her racks of shoes, so he felt confident enough to continue.

  ‘There’s a great tale of an old couple in Bradford who bought what they thought was just a nice little plant from a car boot sale. A few years of TLC and they had a lovely bush outside their window. And armed cops demanding to know why they were growing cannabis in their garden.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. They got sent to prison, or something?’

  ‘Not this time. Genuine mistake. But they got their bush confiscated.’

  ‘And I suppose while you’re donating our premises, staff and no doubt lunch, everyone else there will be being paid by the taxes we also pay?’

  Sean sighed. She’d found the co-ordinated shoes so he now had at least 25 per cent of her attention.

  ‘It’s a public–private partnership. You know. Business in the Community and all that?’

  ‘Where was the public bit of the partnership when we needed planning permission to turn that muddy field into a car park?’

  Sean thought about replying along the lines of water under the bridge but saw that Sandra was about to try on the trousers. ‘Spending our taxes saying no, Sean.’ One leg. ‘That’s where they were. And why are they having this session today?’ Other leg. ‘The Council and police are supposed to be being paid because they know what they are doing.’ She was delaying trying the zip.

  Sean wondered if he should make his escape as Sandra rattled on, building up the momentum to try the zip. ‘Like, perhaps, anti-drugs people knowing what the drugs they are anti-about actually look like?’

  Her mood suddenly changed. Lifted. The zip had closed easily. ‘I don’t mind writing cheques to good causes, Sean, but a free lunch for people who should know what they’re doing comes way down the list, for me. Sorry.’

  ‘You sure you didn’t vote UKIP?’

  She ignored the gibe, as she twisted and turned in front of the mirror wall and held in the slight bulge above the waistband. ‘I’ll keep the jacket on.’

  ‘So, it’s safe to give your seat to someone else, then?’

  Sandra nodded. ‘I think I’ll give this one a miss.’ But I’ll check out the lupins in Mum’s garden, when I drop in there later. She often talks about how people should be allowed cannabis for pain relief.’

  ‘That’s just to save the surgery’s drug budget.’

  ‘If it makes sense and saves money?’

  ‘Your mum’s a receptionist, Sandra, not one of the medics.’

  The look was all Sean needed to know that it was time to drop the subject or go. He was already dressed in his Barbour Countrywear sh
irt and moleskins, which he felt gave the right image at the garden centre, as well as the fact they were comfortable. He reached over for the Gieves and Hawkes suit and shirt that was hanging in a suit carrier, which in turn was hanging on the towel rail radiator. This was for lunchtime and, as Sandra had said, looked better than his favourite. But Sandra wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘But … that’s part of the issue, isn’t it? You’re always saying most crime comes from social deprivation not criminal genes, so isn’t the drugs issue a social issue as much as a medical one? Why don’t we just let anyone who wants to do what that old couple in Bradford did, do it?’

  ‘Grow their own?’

  ‘For their own personal and private use. Then you handing out free lunches might be worth doing.’

  ‘Bit radical coming from you. Thought you were in Joey’s camp. Shoot druggies on sight?’

  ‘If they are dealing and wrecking other people’s lives.’

  ‘I might just suggest that over lunch. Especially the shooting bit.’ She shot him another sarcastic look, then turned back to the shoe racks. He stepped forward to nuzzle her neck before heading for the door, but she turned and pointed a Manolo Blahnik left foot at him.

  ‘I bet that’s what Joey and Luke are up to.’

  ‘What? Growing or shooting? And I think your L.K. Bennett flats should be about right for the VAT Goddess.’

  But Sandra was too focused to joust. ‘They’re growing stuff in that old cottage of Luke’s.’

  ‘Our Joe? No way.’

  ‘OK. But he could be putting in the electrics for all the hydroponics and growing lights. Well? Couldn’t he?’

  Sean was about to say it was ridiculous, but there was that intuition thing. Joey and Luke had looked a bit odd in the supermarket car park the day before. And that business at the Lion. And, he had to concede, Joey often walked too close to the line.

  ‘Joey won’t be doing the drugs bit, Sean.’ She’d read his mind. ‘But you know what he’s like. Anything to help a mate. Ask him what’s going on. There’s something.’

  Sean nodded. He knew they’d be up to something. But drugs? No. Joey wouldn’t do that.

  By the time Natasha heard the shower pump signal that their elder son Alex had finally dragged himself out of bed, Joey’s train was just passing the Roundhouse on its final glide down into Euston and he knew he might have something else to tell her tonight. He had almost made the decision to go back. Almost. When at that moment his phone vibrated. OUTSIDE. USUAL SPOT. It was from Benno. Waiting in Drummond Street just across the road from the side entrance in Melton Street. From there they would be on site in what had become known as the Billionaire’s Bunkers within a matter of minutes.

  Joey left the train and the travelling herd behind, turning right instead of left as he came off the platform ramp, and strode out through the loading bay to see Benno sitting in the old ambulance he used as a travelling workshop. He had long ago given up driving a white van mainly because he was fed up having it broken into overnight, despite fortifying it to a level Luke and his team wouldn’t have objected to in Helmand, but mainly because even the traffic wardens who were paid per ticket usually ignored the ambulance. According to Benno. However, according to Joey, although Benno looked the part, especially in his dark overalls, hi-viz vest and the two old paramedic jackets he had hanging behind the seats, he usually remained untroubled because he had a face anyone would think twice about aggravating. In comparison, Bobby McBain’s pebble-dashed features looked like an ad for Botox.

  Benno was around five foot three of sinew and scars with a face that not only looked like the proverbial bag of spanners but looked like it had been formed by being hit with one. Which, in a way, it had been. When, thirty or so years before, he fell from a scaffolding, right on to his own bag of tools. He had told Joey he couldn’t remember much about it except waking up to discover that as well as not being paid while he was off work, his then employers said he wasn’t covered by any insurance because the accident had been his own fault. He had used the scaffolding, rather than the provided ladder, to take a shortcut to get from one floor to another. Everyone did it. In the time before Health and Safety became a religion and ladders were deemed instruments of the devil.

  He was philosophical about it, as cases like his were now part of the chanted creed, just as he was philosophical about hitching the site fuel bowser to the back of his van one night. If they wouldn’t give it to him. he’d take his own compensation. Everyone did that. In many ways it was a much fairer system. Everyone took what they thought they were owed, instead of some bean counter or computer calculating what some tax table said they could have. It was the face and the philosophy that had watched his back the past couple of years.

  As Joey got closer to the ambulance he could see Benno in that all too familiar slightly bent forward position, staring at his lap. For most it would be taken as the BlackBerry Prayer position and he was checking his phone. With Benno it meant he was busy manufacturing one of his foul-smelling rollies. Sure enough, as Joey pulled open the door he had to clear the seat by scooping up the old Oxo tin that contained Benno’s Rizlas and baccy.

  ‘Do you have to light up every time I arrive?’

  ‘Do you have to arrive every time I light up?’ Evidence of which was slowly being dragged along Benno’s bottom lip.

  ‘How old is this thing?’ asked Joey as he dropped the tin between the seats and wound down the window.

  ‘Older than me.’

  ‘Antique, then?’

  ‘Probably. Me ma gave me that for me snap when I started out. You can get two rounds of cheese and pickle, a pasty, apple and a biscuit in there. As she did. Every day. I ended up hating cheese and pickle.’ Having lit up, Benno started the ambulance and moved off, the rollie dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  If you put Benno in a line-up with Luke and Matt and asked people to vote out the mercenary, tiny Benno would win hands down. He was, in a way. Like Joey, he was going from job to job, away from home and family, following the money. Which was how they’d met. Working on a hotel refurb in Luton. Then being asked by the builder to do some work on his own house in Borehamwood. From there one of his rich mates had asked them to work for him and before long they had formed an informal partnership, moving from one bling merchant to another. The houses and jobs getting bigger and more lucrative. Joey – well, Natasha – took care of all the paperwork and Benno pulled on a network of contacts they had built up over the past few years. Even as Benno exhaled and filled the cab with another cancer-inducing cloud of pollutants, he was someone else Joey would always want on his shoulder when things got tricky. As they seemed to be doing more often these days. That was why it was so hard making the decision to go back home. What would Benno do without him?

  ‘Then what was up with Dad over the weekend?’ Tanya asked, making herself a cup of coffee in her Starbucks to go mug. ‘I mean, I know he does the Neanderthal thing because he thinks he has to, but he was a bit excessive on Saturday night.’

  ‘How do you expect him to react after what nearly happened to you the other week?’

  Tanya let out a long sigh. Not this again. ‘Oh come on, Mum. I nearly got killed like Aunty Janey? Really? She got jumped from behind by some mugger and run over.’

  ‘That lad had a knife out at you, you said.’

  ‘Yeah. And, like, right outside the garage with a million CCTV cameras. Not in the empty car park of the Co-op.’

  ‘He had a knife, Tanya. And if he was crazy enough to do it outside the garage, then he was crazy enough to stab you.’

  That point, along with her mother’s obvious anxiety, was enough to at least make Tanya hesitate. ‘OK. But he didn’t, did he?’

  ‘No. thank God.’

  Which was enough to allow Tanya to swing back into gear. ‘He was crapping himself more than we were. Well, except for Becky. And what would you have wanted me to do anyway, Mum? Let him rape me or make me go down on him, or something? Without a fi
ght?’

  ‘He was probably only after money,’ Natasha replied quickly. She didn’t want to contemplate anything else.

  ‘Yeah. Exactly. And when I told him he wasn’t getting any he backed off. Went looking for someone he could intimidate. Don’t make yourself the victim. Isn’t that what you and Dad have always said?’

  ‘And which is why your father is probably being over-protective.’

  ‘OK. I get that. Just as he has to get the fact that he can’t be away all week and then come home and come over all heavy handed at the weekend.’

  Even though she agreed with her daughter, and it was what had got her up so early, Natasha didn’t want to get into family politics when she still had to get Lucy and the boys out the door. ‘Can we talk about it tonight?’

  ‘Sure, no big deal. Do you want a coffee to go?’

  ‘Please. But how was Becky after not hearing from her Egyptian prince?’

  ‘Don’t let her hear you say that, Mum.’ Tanya laughed. ‘His name’s Husani.’

  ‘OK. I’m still getting used to every second person in town being an immigrant.’

  ‘That is so racist.’

  ‘It’s not. It’s a fact. Well, perhaps an exaggeration. But you know what I mean anyway. So how’s Becky after not seeing Humani?’

  ‘Husani. He still hadn’t phoned her up to last night. After we cleared her phone he was probably giving her the silent treatment back, thinking that she had blanked him all Friday and Saturday. So, she’s still devastated.’ Tanya put the back of her hand to her forehead for the melodramatic effect. Then: ‘God knows how Dad’d react if I came home with one of Hus’s friends.’