‘What?’
‘I’m in bloody shock.’
‘You should’ve called straight away’
‘I didn’t want to. I’d seen you were over in Leeds and I don’t like to take advantage of the fact that we’re friends or anything.’
‘Richard! What are friends for?’
He smiles wanly.
‘Let’s sit down,’ I say, walking us over to a pair of crimson and gold lobby chairs.
‘Spoiling your evening,’ he mumbles again.
‘Rubbish. Start from the beginning.’
‘That’s a good question in itself. I didn’t know there was a beginning, didn’t know anything had started until last night.’
‘What about Bob Douglas? When did he come on the scene?’
‘End of October, start of November. I was worried about the house. He came out and had a look, tightened things up. I got to know him, like him.’
‘You know about -’
‘Yeah, yeah. Told me all about it. Why? What do you know about him?’
‘I went over there after the shootings, but he was sedated so I never actually spoke to him. By all accounts he was a good bloke. Good copper. When he left, he went kicking and screaming.’
‘That’s what he said. Ten years in the police, then out on his arse.’
I nod: ‘So after the house, what kind of stuff was he doing for you?’
‘Consulting. Insurance work. Nothing heavy.’
‘Until last night?’
‘Yes. Called about midnight. Said he’d been out and about, you know. And he’d heard from a so-called reliable source that I’d been targeted for investigation.’
‘A reliable source?’
‘A policeman. One of your lot.’
‘He say who?’
‘Said he couldn’t.’
‘He say why you were being investigated?’
He looks down at his hands, the carpet: ‘Financial irregularities. Supposedly’
‘What kind of financial irregularities?’
‘We don’t know. That’s all he heard.’
‘Did he get a name? Of the man in charge?’
‘Roger Hook.’
Fuck.
‘What about the bank? They give you anything more?’
‘No,’ he’s shaking his head. ‘Bloody humiliating though, I can tell you. Your bank manager, your golf partner and friend, calling you at home to tell you that the police have been in asking about you, taking away their records on you.’
‘I’m sorry, Richard.’
‘You know this Roger Hook?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It doesn’t make any difference. You’ve nothing to hide.’
He looks up from the carpet, his hands: ‘Who knows what they’ll find.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing to find, is there?’
His eyes still aren’t meeting mine.
‘Richard,’ I say. ‘Tell me there’s nothing to find.’
‘Who knows?’
‘You do, for Chrissakes man.’
‘Look -’
‘Jesus, Richard.’
‘I need your help.’
I look him in the eye, hold him there, tell him: ‘There’s nothing I can do for you.’
‘Pete -’
I stand up, ready to walk.
‘There’s something else,’ he says.
I stop.
‘About you,’ he says.
‘Me? What about me?’
‘You asked me why, why I was being targeted?’
I nod.
‘Douglas said it’s down to you.’
‘What is? What are you talking about?’
‘This. I’ve been singled out because I’m friends with you.’
‘Rubbish. Utter rubbish.’
He has hold of my arm: ‘Peter -’
‘Douglas is wrong. You’re wrong.’
‘To put you in your place, that’s what they told him.’
I turn away, freeing myself from his grip.
Him: ‘What are you going to do?’
I turn back: ‘Nothing.’
‘You’re just going to leave me up to my neck in all this?’
‘There’s nothing I can do, Richard. You’re under investigation.’
‘Because of you, I am.’
I’m walking away again, deaf to him -
But he has the last word, across the lobby and through the Dining Room doors, spinning me round, hissing into my face: ‘What are friends for, eh Pete?’
Walking away, walking away through the velvet sea, Joan talking to Linda Dawson, his wife -
The pair of them turning, smiling.
Him: ‘What are friends for, eh?’
Me taking her by the arm, through the darkness and the decay, pulling her away, away from the music and the blood -
‘What are friends for?’
Within nightmares.
The house is black.
I put the car in the garage and go inside.
Joan’s sitting on the settee in the dark, her coat still on.
I switch on the Christmas tree lights and sit down beside her.
‘What is it? What happened with Richard?’ she says. ‘He’s under investigation. To do with his business.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No. But he thinks it’s something to do with his friendship with me, with us.’
‘What?’
‘Someone told him that’s why he’s under investigation.’
‘Who told him that?’
‘An ex-copper. You don’t know him.’
‘And is it right? Is that why he’s under investigation?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘What am I going to say to Linda?’
‘I don’t know but, until all this is cleared up, we’re going to have to be careful.’
She is nodding.
‘I’m sorry, love.’
She keeps nodding.
I can’t think of anything else to say, anything to make any of it any better.
I lean forward and pick the Evening News off the coffee table.
It doesn’t help:
Laureen’s Mum in Ripper Plea.
Dirty Protests.
Under the newspaper are some forms and a pamphlet -
Application forms to adopt.
‘What are these?’ I ask, picking them up.
Joan tries to take them from me: ‘Not now, love,’ she says. ‘Talk about it another time.’
‘A Vietnamese baby?’ I say, looking down at the cover of the pamphlet.
‘Not now, Peter,’ she says again, taking the papers from me as she goes upstairs.
Later in bed, I hug her and we try to have sex but I can’t -
And after, I say: ‘I think it’s a good idea.’
She doesn’t say anything -
And after that we lie in the double bed, staring up at the ceiling, apart -
On the dark stair -
She turns away on her side and I get up and put the radio on.
I get back into bed and lie there -
Awake, sweating and afraid -
Eyes wide -
On the dark stair -
The North after the bomb, machines the only survivors -
There were people on the TV singing hymns -
People on the TV singing hymns with no face -
People on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features -
And at my feet, they had her down on the floor at my feet, her hands behind her back, stripped and beaten, three of them raping her, sodomising her, taking their turns with a bottle and a chair, cutting her hair, pissing and shitting on her, making her suck them, making her suck me, ugly gulls circling overhead, screaming -
‘Sti rip sll iwl lik Hunter!’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Joan’s holding me, my heart beating, breaking.
‘What on earth were you dreaming about?’
I can feel come in my pyjamas.
‘Nothing,’ I say, thinking -
No more sleep, no more sleep, no more sleep.