The Probation service gave Nick his weekly reminder that he was only free on license. Small, dapper Dave Trapp was about Nick’s age, with sandy hair brushed over a bald patch and a jutting-out chin. Had Nick made a different choice on leaving university, he could be where Dave was now. Dave was okay. He treated Nick like an equal. Their meetings so far had been short and cordial.
‘Settling into the new flat?’
‘It’s fine. Convenient for town.’
‘Good of your brother to help you out with the deposit. Are you getting enough private tuition work to cover the rent?’
‘Not really.’
Dave started talking about benefits, but Nick had no intention of claiming. He’d signed off at the first opportunity. It was one thing, driving a taxi without a permit, another doing it while drawing the dole: they’d add time to his sentence for that.
‘I get by,’ Nick insisted.
‘You have to understand that we don’t want to see you drawn back into the way you earned a living before going to prison.’
‘I was a school teacher for six years,’ Nick reminded him. ‘I did the other thing for less than two. It was a blip. I’m not likely to start again.’
‘What about when you can’t afford to pay the rent?’
Nick had five grand of Andrew Saint’s money, but he couldn’t tell Trapp that without explaining why Saint owed him.
‘It was never about money, why I started in the first place.’
‘What was it about then?’
It was about looking thirty in the eye and realizing that he had made nothing of himself, working himself into the ground for crap wages while money poured into the hands of flash gits who did big city jobs where the only qualifications required were greed and a lack of scruples. But this was not the whole truth. Nor was it what Dave Trapp wanted to hear. Nick had to pretend that what he’d done was wrong.
‘It was about temptation,’ he said, ‘and greed. Finding those caves beneath the flat was too good an opportunity. But the flat’s sold, and I’m told some very heavy people have moved into the homegrown game while I was away. I’m not that greedy, or that brave.’
‘Is that how you got caught?’ Dave asked. ‘Grassed on by a competitor?’
Nick shrugged. This was new territory between them. Probation weren’t supposed to be interested in his original arrest. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You’re a bright guy. The business you were in, the clever ones usually keep a distance from their supply and get away with it. I wondered how you got caught. It’s not in your notes.’
Dave gave off an air of genial, low level competence but Nick suspected a hidden agenda. Did he think Nick was after revenge?
‘I think one of the neighbours saw something, called the police.’
Dave nodded. ‘Unlucky. Anyway, I’m glad things are going so well. Only one more weekly meeting to go, then we’ll be down to once a fortnight. Can we move next week’s appointment to Friday? I have a family thing.’
‘Sure.’ Nick made a note of the new date and time, midday on the day after the general election.
19
Nick didn’t call on Wednesday. Sarah wanted to ring him, but didn’t. Soon she’d be on her way: either to Surbiton or to work for his ex-best friend. Maybe she could reunite the three of them: her, Nick, Andy. But not if she worked for the Police Association. Their figurehead couldn’t hang out with two notorious dopers. She remembered that time she’d saved their bacon, fifteen years ago. If Sarah had been caught then, she wouldn’t have a parliamentary career now. The thought caught her up short. The last three years had been frustrating a lot of the time, but she wouldn’t have missed them for anything. To work in London but not be an MP would be a kind of purgatory. She couldn’t stay in Nottingham either. With the proceeds from her two flats, she could buy somewhere pretty decent, but first she’d need to decide where. Surbiton sounded anonymous. She looked it up – inside the M25 but a long way from London. It was near Esher, where one of the Beatles used to live. How did she know that? From the fund of useless knowledge she’d picked up when going out with Nick.
She was tired. The last week of the campaign was always the hardest, the most frantic. She had a busy diary, but none of it was essential any more. The voters would do what the voters decided to do. Sarah entertained a fantasy of going into a travel agent’s, booking a week’s cheap break somewhere, returning just in time for the count on Thursday night. The party workers could get on with it. They were a masochistic lot, who enjoyed going from door to door, irritating the apathetic, risking their fingers every time they shoved a leaflet through a letterbox. It was, she’d often thought, some kind of substitute for religion. She’d done it herself, of course, paid her dues: but that was all it was, paying dues so that she could become a candidate, and then an MP.
There were no travel agents in the Maynard Estate, the part of her constituency with the lowest turn-out. Sarah joined the doorknockers for an hour, then back to the Labour Committee Rooms. A wind was getting up. Light drizzle splashed the wheely bin by the back door. Sarah went to the loo and when she got back, the drizzle had become a downpour. Winston was talking to someone.
‘Probably only last a few minutes. Hold on and have a tea before you go out.’
‘I don’t mind getting wet,’ said a familiar voice.
‘It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s the leaflets. Have you met the candidate? Sarah, this is . . . sorry, didn’t catch your name.’
‘We’ve met,’ Sarah said. ‘Winston, this is an old university friend of mine. Nick Cane.’
The agent left them alone. They stood awkwardly, neither embracing, nor shaking hands. Sarah’s hair was windblown. Up close, she didn’t look plastic. She didn’t look much different from the last time they met, thirteen years before. Nick didn’t know what to say.
‘Sorry about the other night,’ he managed. ‘Something came up.’
‘Polly Bolton. I saw. How do you happen to know her?’
‘You meet a lot of people, driving a cab. But it wasn’t just that. There are reasons why you might not want to be seen in public with me.’
Sarah put a calming hand on his upper arm, gave him a small squeeze. ‘I spoke to Tony Bax in the pub. He told me about your trouble, said that was probably why you were keeping your distance.’
‘I’m glad you know.’ Nick was relieved Sarah was still talking to him, even being friendly.
Sarah put on an air of forced jollity. ‘Are we going to catch up then? I mean, it’s nice of you to come and leaflet but it’s pissing down. There’ll be fifty people showing up in an hour who’ll be hacked off if there’s nothing for them to do and, anyway, I’m going to lose. So I’d much rather go for a drink with you.’
‘How can I refuse?’ Nick said.
‘Drinks will have to be on you, though.’
‘I remember. Candidates aren’t allowed to buy drinks for other people during an election. I’m on foot. Is there anywhere good nearby?’
‘Fuck, no,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s take my car.’
Seeing Sarah, walking with her, Nick wanted her, but in the same way he wanted unobtainable women on the TV. She had moved far beyond him. She was agitated, he could see that, but it was to do with the election, not him. In the passenger seat of her unassuming hatchback, Nick found Sarah’s proximity unnerving. The weather changed just as suddenly as it had a few minutes before, wind pushing away the cloud to create a dazzling sky.
‘I don’t really want a drink,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve had enough to drink lately. Fancy a walk, while it’s like this? University lake?’