“No need to apologise. Now, what is it you want? How did you know I was Kev?”
“A friend of yours told me about you. Guy called Preece. Nicky Preece.”
“Nicky. Oh yes?” None of the suspicion was leaving his words, or his posture. He hovered at the doorway to the shed, cupping a plantpot in his hands. “What else did he tell you?”
“He told me how you used to work for Vernon Lord.”
The mention of the name made Kev step back into the shadow of the shed door, which obscured Sean’s view of him. “Oh? What of it?”
Emma touched Sean’s arm. “Mr. Lovesey, can we buy you breakfast? We understand you’re a bit of a connoisseur of English breakfasts.”
Kev moved out of the shadow of the door once more. He appeared even more pale and diminished. “It’s nice of you to offer, but I don’t eat much these days. No doubt you know why.” He moved the scarf around his neck, so that it sat more comfortably. “You’d better come in,” he said, “seeing as you’ve come all this way to talk to me.”
Sean and Emma stepped over the corrugated iron fence into the well-manicured plot. They followed Kev into the shed, which was frugally furnished: a wooden stool, a fold-away table, a camping stove. The remains of a game of patience were spread out on the table. Garden tools made a homely jumble in the corner, a fresh, edaphic aroma rising off them. A sleeping bag was tightly rolled up and stored on a shelf over the door. A broken shotgun hung from a large hook beneath the window. A box of shells sat on the sill, open, ready.
“Sorry I don’t have more chairs,” Kev said, in a voice that was anything but. “The floor’s clean though, if you want to park yourselves.”
Kev went on with his game of cards. At close quarters, they could hear the wheeze of air in his throat as he took breaths.
Emma said, “How come you don’t have a scarecrow, Mr. Lovesey? Aren’t you worried the birds will take your crops?”
“None of us here has a scarecrow. Bloody worthless things. And it’s not crop-sowing time anyway. Nothing to take.”
“But there’s a scarecrow out there. Someone’s stealing a march on you.”
Kev grunted and shook his head. “No scarecrows here.”
Emma stepped outside and pointed. As soon as her arm was outstretched, she dropped it. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sure I saw one in that plot over there.”
“Nicky was fond of you,” Sean said, giving Emma an irritated look. “I think all of the lads were.”
“How do you know ’em?”
Sean spoke of the softstripping contract and the time he had spent with the crew. He stopped short of divulging that his relationship with the others had ceased, that any friends he had made during his time there were enemies now.
“And Lord?” Kev asked, his hands now still on the deck of cards.
“I went with Vernon on a few jobs,” Sean explained.
“A few jobs,” Kev said, and this time his blasted voice managed to carry a trace of sarcasm.
“You know what I’m here for,” Sean said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“People are dying. You were nearly killed for what’s going on.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sean persisted. “It’s still happening, what Vernon is doing. He’s still collecting. Sometimes he takes… sometimes it’s unborn babies. Did you know that?”
Now Kev swivelled on the stool. His eyes were raw and flat: oysters on the half-shell. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“He needs to be stopped. I think he killed a girl I used to know. Or someone working with him did. I want you to help me.”
“How?”
“You know all about him. You’ll have seen things. You know his weaknesses.”
Kev shook his head. “It isn’t Vernon you should be worried about.”
“Oh really?”
“Why don’t you just leave me alone? I don’t want to get back into that nonsense. I’ve got too much to do.”
Sean hitched around on his seat to get a view of the allotment. “Yeah. You’ve got a hole in your wheelbarrow needs mending and a rake to clean.”
“It suits me,” Kev said, quickly.
“I heard you were a good guy for Vernon. He rated you, I heard.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care any more.”
“I heard you were loyal and wouldn’t ever lie down for anyone. Hundred per center. Hundred and ten per center.” Sean leaned over and picked at the dried mud on a trowel. “Will you at least tell me what you know? And tell me why you bailed out? It wasn’t the gunshot wound, was it? At least tell us what happened with that.”
Kev sat across from him, staring at the younger man while Emma stood by the doorway, looking out at the pockets of mist in the rowans and the hawthorn. Chickens in a coop squabbled among themselves for a few seconds. The smell of the bonfire drifted through the open door. Kev’s stony face broke open to reveal a smile.
“Have a drink,” he said, pulling open a drawer and removing a half-bottle of whisky. “A nip, to keep out the cold.”
He poured three measures into three mugs and passed them around. They took sips. They nodded at the agreeable flavour, the migration of warmth through their bodies. A robin landed six feet away from the door and eyed them coolly.
Kev said:
I first met Vernon while I was working on the docks. I was doing anything I could for money back then. Seventy hours a week I’d be breaking my back loading or unloading ships. Fruit, textiles, meat, sometimes arms, although that was often midnight stuff. And never at the docks. Very naughty. Vernon was on one of the boats bringing in an illegal shipment of pistols from the Americas to sell on to Europe one night when I was helping out. I didn’t know much about his operations but I’d heard he was just about the best smuggler there was. I’d heard about him long before I met him. He was a bit of a legend.
We went down to a boathouse on the river and helped take the boxes off this boat while Vernon sat on a chair smoking cheroots and watching us working. When we’d finished, he called me back and thanked me, told me I put my back into it more than any other dogsbody that he’d seen. He was looking at me strange, like I had something green on my face. The others were in the boathouse by this time, divvying up the booty and loading it into the backs of stolen cars for delivery. They gave me filthy looks as they walked back and to.
Vernon never blinked when he talked. First time I ever saw his eyelids was when I caught him asleep one time. And even then I had to look twice because it was as though they were so thin they were almost translucent, like he was watching you while he kipped. He gave me a chunky little glass filled with rum and told me to down it. After the drink he asked me straight if I wanted to come and work with him. He needed someone he could trust, he said. He needed another set of eyes. Another set of hands. It was getting too dangerous, he said, this line of work he was in. He was getting too old. He pinched my cheek and laughed when he said this. He said that the rewards for helping him out would be great. Unimaginable.
I didn’t like it, the work he was offering. But I stuck at it and developed a tough skin. The boat work tailed off anyway. We lost our gills and went inland. I took beatings for Vernon. I took a knife once. I got harder. The beatings didn’t happen so often. I started doling the beatings out more than I was taking them. Vernon and me put the frighteners on this part of the country. We had the Northwest in our pockets. We got word of the rich pickings and went round to collect. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t money that Vernon was picking up. I thought he was a debt collector pure and simple. I never asked who for and I never asked why. I just matched him pace for pace and stood behind him in the shadows, cracking my knuckles while he pleased and thank you’d and scraped shit off his heels on the steps of all those sorry little houses.