He whistled as he hurried along the road, relishing the continuing change in himself and the widening of his horizons. He felt powerfully elated. Knowledge, he thought, was a wonderful thing. And so was herbal tea.
At three-thirty that afternoon, as Larry parked his car outside the house, Susan was sitting at the kitchen table, tittering girlishly at a story DC Colin Frisby was telling her. He was on his hands and knees on the floor by the sink, trying to repair a faulty cupboard door. He found the position no drawback to his style. When he talked to a woman he used his head a lot, moving it this way and that to accompany his parade of expressions; he used different expressions to give his face some animated appeal. He was sure women loved the way he did that.
“No, no, straight up,” he protested, as Susan laughingly dismissed a detail of his yarn. “She said, ‘Well, if you think you’ve got the right girl, search me.’ So I’m doing the business and it’s pat-pat here, pat-pat there, and my Guv’nor walks up: ‘Morning, ma’am,’ he says...” Frisby froze for the punch, his face a masterpiece of loveable fallibility. “She was the new DCI! No kidding!” He waited until Susan’s delighted giggles died away. “You got a screwdriver at all, love?”
In the meantime Larry had let himself in. He opened the door from the hallway and came into the kitchen. The presence of DC Frisby was a surprise. Larry froze by the door.
“Hi!” Susan got up, waving a hand toward the visitor. “I persuaded him to fix the door on that cupboard.” She kissed Larry’s cheek, a light touch of her dry lips. “How are you feeling?” She nodded at Frisby again, who was smiling chummily. “When he came back yesterday, he—”
“I’m fine,” Larry told her, his elation gone, a coldness moving in his stomach. “I’ll pick up the kids if you like.”
“No need, they’ve got football practice until seven. Do you want a cup of tea?” Susan turned to Frisby. “Refill, Colin?”
Frisby was doing an impression of a man suddenly engrossed in a tricky job. Larry asked Susan to give them a second together. Susan went out, pulling a face at Frisby.
“Thanks for dropping by,” Larry said when the door closed.
Frisby mumbled something.
“McKinnes put someone on my kids’ school, is that right?”
Frisby nodded, eyes half-lidded, implying he knew more.
“Well” — Larry gave him a buddy-buddy wink — “don’t let me interrupt you.” He glanced at the cupboard. “Now you’ve started, you might as well finish.”
Frisby nodded again. Larry left the kitchen and went upstairs, taking the bag of herbal preparations with him before Susan poked her nose in and started grilling him. When he had tucked the stuff in the bottom of the wardrobe he stood by the window, hearing Susan and Frisby talking downstairs.
“Little fart.”
Larry heard Frisby laughing again, Susan’s voice answering him about which way she wanted the cupboard to hang, and it irritated him — he didn’t really know why. Frisby and he had never particularly got on and now he seemed to be making himself well and truly at home. Larry was about to go downstairs again, when he thought, “Sod it, I’d never get that ruddy cupboard fixed anyway.” Instead he wondered how he was going to get all Von Joel’s herbal kit into the hospital without DI Shrapnel or one or other of the officers asking him what the hell he was doing. He reckoned a few pounds of grapes’d cover the bag. He knew he shouldn’t be taking even the grapes in, but somehow he felt he owed Van Joel, and besides, he told himself, the stuff’d probably get him cured and out of the hospital faster.
As he passed the kitchen, calling out that he was on his way, Frisby was standing back admiring his handiwork with the cupboard door. Susie beamed from the doorway.
“It’s on the other way around now, much better than the old one, means I don’t keep banging the fridge.”
“Great, I’ll see you later then.”
She gave him a kiss and went back into the kitchen, not even seeing him off. Larry slammed the front door. Maybe having Frisby around was a good thing, they needed the hall redecorated. Maybe he’d mention it to the snide bastard when he saw him at the station. Frisby was certainly making himself at bloody home.
Larry stopped off at the local grocers and bought two and a half pounds of black grapes. He balanced the bag, carefully placing it on top of the herbal medicines in the plastic carrier bag, and went on to the hospital.
15
A moment before the door opened Von Joel was joking with the late-duty nurse, coaxing her to undo a couple of buttons at the top of her uniform. When he heard Larry Jackson outside talking to the Sister he lay back and closed his eyes. His smile faded away. The nurse looked at him curiously.
Larry came in almost on tiptoe, peering at the still figure on the bed.
“Is it okay?”
The nurse nodded. “But don’t be too long.” She smoothed the bedclothes, leaned close to Von Joel. “Will you want a sleeping tablet tonight?”
“You know what I want,” Von Joel said, his voice barely audible.
The nurse left the room, smiling secretively. Larry lifted the bag, showed off his grapes, and then placed them on the bedside table. He then looked down at the cabinet and stuffed the herbal gear inside. As he did so, Von Joel opened his eyes.
“Stuff you wanted from the herbalist,” Larry said, pulling a chair up to the bedside and sitting down. “The Professor said to use the arnica as directed — there’s liquid, a pot of cream, and some of it in tablet form. He sent you a few herbal teas, too, and other stuff. I got the items he put on the list from a pharmacy. There’s instructions with everything.”
Von Joel smiled his thanks. He seemed very weak. His eyes followed Larry’s every move with a strange unfathomable hooded stare, as if he didn’t quite trust him. It was a bit unnerving, seeing him so vulnerable, so dependent.
“Listen” — Larry glanced at the window — “nick any hospital labels you can get your hands on and stick them on the packets and bottles. If it gets out that I brought in anything, I’ll be for it.” He sat back and folded his arms. “So. How’s things?” Larry gave a gentle smile, unsure of himself. A guilty feeling was lurking behind the smile he tried to make so casual.
Von Joel’s dark eyes kept searching Larry’s face, and when he spoke his voice was husky with emotion.
“Sometimes...” He stopped and frowned. “It’s something in your eyes but sometimes, you are so like my kid brother.”
Larry shifted uncomfortably. Without warning or any obvious reason, Von Joel’s eyes filled with tears.
“I need to talk about something, Larry. It’s not about grassing, nothing to do with that. It’s just — just something I want you to know. About Mickey, my brother.”
Larry felt even more uneasy now. He unfolded his arms, then folded them again when he couldn’t think what to do with his hands.
“That stiff they found in Italy,” Von Joel said, “it was Mickey. And listen — I didn’t kill him.”
There was a pause. Von Joel closed his eyes, breathing carefully, tears coursing down his cheeks. Larry leaned forward, about to say something, but Von Joel spoke again.
“We were sent to foster homes, me and him, but he got a raw deal. I was adopted by a well-to-do couple, they used to travel a lot. I lived in Canada, New York...” He opened his eyes and smiled wanly. “She was a flake, but they treated me okay — well, for a while they did. But Mickey, poor bastard...” He wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. “The people he was put with, they beat the living daylights out of him. He kept on running away, and nobody tried to find out why or where he was running to. He kept all my postcards — it was as if they were all he had of me, all he possessed of a real family.”