‘Well, I hope so,’ he said. ‘But there may be trouble, this may not be good news…’
‘Tell me anyway and let’s see, shall we?’ I thought it was good news. I thought it was the best.
‘It’s just, there’s been someone on your boat the last couple of days. At least that long. We came down on Friday, and I thought I saw a light; but it wasn’t much, and your car wasn’t there, I assumed I’d imagined it. Just a reflection on the window, something like that. But then I saw her shifting yesterday, as if someone was moving around inside. I knocked, but there wasn’t an answer. I would have phoned then, only I didn’t want to sound neurotic; so I watched her today, and I’m sure there’s someone aboard. Maybe they’re friends of yours; but they don’t answer my knocking, so I thought someone should tell you. Not the police, I didn’t want to tell the police without checking first…’
‘No,’ I said kindly, ‘you wouldn’t want to trouble the police. Thanks, Alan, I know who that’ll be. I’ll come down and have a chat with him.’
‘OK, fine.’ His voice huffed with relief; he’d done the right thing. ‘You don’t want me to stay around till you get here, do you? Only we’ve both got work in the morning, and the wife’s keen to get off…’
‘No, you go. Don’t worry about it. And thanks again, I’m very grateful.’
Being the man he was, Alan would probably still hang around for another hour or so, expecting me to dash down, wanting to be there when I did.
So I waited, I gave Linda an hour and a half to drag him away; and even then I didn’t go directly to the canal. I drove into the city first, to pick up David.
‘I’ve found Dex,’ I told him. ‘Come on, I’ll take you there.’
You pay through the nose, for a permanent mooring in London; but it’s worth it, to me. I wouldn’t be without my boat.
She’s a proper narrowboat, sixty-eight foot of steel hull and wooden upperworks. I bought her from a broke commodities broker, paying cash strictly under the counter, no comebacks. She wasn’t called the Screw Archimedes then, but she is now.
Every couple of months I take off for a week or two, but I was only a fortnight back from the last trip. I wouldn’t normally have been near the Screw this weekend.
Maybe I should have thought of checking it over, just in case; this wasn’t the first time Dex had lain low for a while on my boat. He’d always asked permission before, though. Presumably he’d had a spare set of keys cut on the quiet, and decided this was the time to use them.
Not bad, for a kid in a panic. Not the world’s greatest idea, maybe, but not bad. He couldn’t have reckoned on a nosy neighbour watching how the boat rocked at her moorings.
I parked behind the pub as always, then led David a hundred yards along the cinder towpath. Here was the Screw, tied bow and stern to mooring-rings; fifty yards further on were the black gates of the lock, with the river flowing darkly beyond.
And yes, there was a light aboard my boat. Thin and flickering, a torch with its battery dying, perhaps, just bright enough to show around the curtain’s edge.
‘That’ll be him,’ I murmured. ‘You wait here, David, leave this with me.’
‘I want to see him,’ David said, unaccustomedly forceful.
‘You will. I promise. Just let me speak to him first, OK? He’ll be nervous enough as it is, he’s hiding here, you’ve got to remember that; it’ll be worse if two of us bust in on him at once. Especially with you being a stranger.
He nodded, stood back, let me go. I stepped lightly aboard, slipped my key into the Yale on the door and ducked inside.
Down the steps, past the rear bunks, past the head, through the kitchen – and there was Dex in the lounge, stretched on a banquette and barely reacting, barely lifting his head.
The reason for that was on the table between us. The light came from a spirit lamp, its pale flame turned low; and scattered around it were all the makings, spoon and syringe and a length of inner tube, and his sweet sweet smack in a cellophane pack. And yes, Dex really was running away this time, running everywhere he knew to hide. Two years since I’d kicked this habit out of him, kicked him clean.
I wasn’t going to do that again.
He knew it, too. Looked at me and knew it, even in the state he was in; and tried to smile even so, tried to be easy. As he would, as anyone would.
‘Skip. Hi…’
Sure, he called me Skip. They all did that, all five of them. What else would a crew call their captain?
‘You owe me money, Dex.’ Large amounts of money; and I had an idea I was looking at a lot of it, right there on the table, what was left of my money.
I’d made that money, and the Crew had spent it. I wasn’t happy at all.
They’d been a loyal and obedient band, my Crew, my little group of workers. It was a clever gig, too, a sweet project. I ran the money off, fives and tens and twenties; they spend it around their clients. Half a dozen ways they had, to persuade a man to change his notes for mine. And of course no comebacks, even if he found out they were dud. The kids might lose a customer, but no more than that, no worse. Certainly no police.
So I trusted them, I gave them a thousand at a time and only took eight hundred back. Easy money for them, easy for me.
But then they blew it, they didn’t keep up the payments. Someone started picking them off, and they ran for cover. With my money in their pockets.
‘Christ, be fair, Skip,’ Dex stammered, as I’d known that he would. ‘We had to, some bugger’s after us…’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed calmly. ‘I’m after you.’ His dealer too, by now, if he’d been paid with my clever money; but that was no concern of mine.
‘They’re dead, Skip. They’re all dead…’
‘That’s right,’ again. I fetched water, busied myself with the makings on the table, fixing up a good strong jolt: not so much a trip, more a retirement. Using all he had in that little packet, enough to give a horse a hefty kick.
‘Skip…?’
‘Let’s put it this way,’ I said, tapping the syringe lightly, expertly, watching the bubbles rise. ‘You spend my money on smack, I want to see you get a proper high out of it. Don’t I? I want to see you get your money’s worth. I made that money, I wouldn’t want to see it wasted.’
‘That’ll, that’ll kill me…’ No resistance, but I hadn’t expected any. If I wanted to do this, he’d just lie back and let me. Even if he’d been fit and well fed, he’d let me do it. That’s how I’d trained him. I was skipper, he was only crew.
‘Yes, I expect so. Two choices, Dex,’ still smiling, still sweet and reasonable. ‘Either I put you down with a needleful of dreams, or you get up off your pretty arse, go outside and talk to Alfie’s brother. He’s waiting for you.
‘Alfie’s…?’ Oh, he was slow tonight, he was well detached. He frowned, almost had to think who Alfie was before he got onto the notion of a brother. Finally, ‘That’s where Tony went. To talk to Alfie’s brother.’
‘I know.’
‘He never come back, didn’t Tony.’
‘I know. He died.’
‘Yeah…’
He looked at me, crew looked at skipper. Skipper tapped needle.
Crew departed.
He shuffled slowly aft, banged his head on the hatchway getting out. I emptied the needle into the sink and gathered all the makings together in a bag, for ditching later.
Briefly, I heard David’s distant voice; then nothing.
When I went outside to look for them, I found David pretty much where I’d left him, in the shadow of a warehouse wall, Dex at his feet not even bleeding any more.