‘You’re a nutter, you are,’ he said. ‘You ought to be locked up.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
‘Is it over?’ the girl by the door asked. ‘Are you done? Are you? ’Cos I’m bleeding bursting here.’
‘It’s over, love,’ said Banks. ‘Off you go.’
‘About fucking time.’ She dashed upstairs. The woman on the sofa looked at Lenny with contempt, but still said nothing.
‘You in charge here, Lenny?’ Banks asked, catching her look. ‘Because there’s no point my talking to the monkey, if you catch my drift.’
‘I’m in fucking charge,’ he said, glaring at the woman. ‘They know that.’
She sniffed, but Banks could see fear in her eyes, the first emotion he had noticed in her. Lenny was in charge all right, and he probably used the same tactics Banks had just used to rule his roost. That didn’t make Banks feel particularly good, but needs must. He wondered what other sorts of abuse went on in this house, in addition to drugs. The young girl, for example, or the other kids, wherever they were. Nothing would have surprised him. Maybe he’d call in the drugs squad, anyway, and the social. Someone ought to keep a close eye on this lot, that was for certain.
He heard the toilet flush as he left.
18
Roy’s arrival at about four o’clock broke the tension for Banks. Until then he had been helping Geoff set up the bar and buffet on tables in the kitchen, keeping a tight rein on his temper for his parents’ sake, even though Geoff treated him like an employee. ‘Now, Alan, if you wouldn’t mind just moving that over there… That’s a good lad… If you could nip over to the shops and pick up…’ And so on. He had also been wanting to get Geoff alone and have another go at him in the light of Win-some’s information, but his mother was always around issuing instructions too. Wisely, his father had gone upstairs to ‘rest’.
When the doorbell rang, Ida Banks practically ran to the front door, and Banks heard her shouts of glee as she greeted Roy. After divesting himself of his raincoat, the man himself came through to the living room, clutching a bottle-shaped bag, and with a young woman in tow. She looked about twenty, Banks thought, with short, shaggy hair, black streaked with blonde, a pale, pretty face, with beautiful eyes the colour and gleam of chestnuts in September. She also had a silver stud just below her lower lip. She was wearing jeans and a short woolly jumper, exposing a couple of inches of bare, flat midriff and a navel with a ring in it.
‘This is Corinne,’ said Roy. ‘Say hello to my brother, Alan, Corinne.’
Corinne shook Banks’s hand and said hello. She gave him a shy smile and averted her eyes.
Roy looked at Geoff, free hand stretched out, smiling like a salesman. ‘And you are-?’
‘Geoff. Geoff Salisbury.’
‘Geoff. Of course! Pleased to meet you, Geoff. I’ve heard a lot about you. Mum and Dad say they’d be lost without you.’
Geoff beamed and shifted from foot to foot. ‘Well… that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration.’
Very ’umble, Banks thought.
‘Not at all,’ said Roy. ‘Not at all.’ He gave Geoff a firm handshake and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good to meet you at last.’
Geoff basked in the glow of Roy’s charm like a child in his mother’s embrace.
All this time, Ida Banks had stood by, smiling on. Roy turned to her again and gave her a hug. Then he handed over the package he’d been carrying. Ida Banks opened it. It was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Vintage.
She turned to her husband. ‘Ooh, look at this, Arthur! Champagne.’
‘It’s the real stuff, too,’ Roy said, with a wink at Banks. ‘None of your Spanish cava or New World sparklers.’
Arthur Banks grunted. Banks happened to know that his father hated champagne, as much because it was a symbol of the upper classes as for its taste.
‘I’d better put it away for a special occasion,’ said his mother, taking it through the kitchen and placing it into the dark depths of the larder, where it would probably remain. Banks thought to mention that today was as special an occasion as they were likely to have in a while, but he knew it was best to keep quiet when Roy was in full benevolent swing. He’d bought a few cans of beer and lager, himself, and he knew that they would be emptied that very evening, without a doubt.
‘Now, then,’ said Ida Banks, rubbing her hands together and reaching out to touch Corinne’s shoulder, ‘what about a drink for everyone? Corinne, love, what’ll you have?’
‘Lager and lime?’
‘Right you are, love. And you, Roy?’
‘Just a Perrier for me, Mum,’ said Roy. ‘Driving.’
‘Of course.’ Ida Banks frowned. ‘What did you say? Perrier? I don’t think we have any of that, do we, Alan?’
Banks shook his head. ‘Only tap water.’
‘Well, that won’t do, will it?’ his mother said scornfully.
‘It’s all right, Mrs B,’ chimed in Geoff, ‘I’ll just nip over the road. Old Ali’s bound to have some. He sells everything.’ And before anyone could stop him he was off.
Ida Banks turned to Roy again. ‘You won’t be driving for ages yet, I hope, son. Won’t you have a glass of something a bit stronger first?’
‘Oh, go on, then,’ said Roy. ‘You’ve twisted my arm. I’ll have a glass of white wine.’
Banks’s mother gave him a questioning glance. ‘We’ve got that, Mum,’ he said, then looked at his brother. ‘Screw top OK, Roy?’
‘Whatever,’ said Roy, his lip curling.
Banks and his father both opted for beer.
‘Come on, then, Corinne, love,’ said Ida Banks, taking Corinne by the arm. ‘You can keep me company and help me pour.’
Banks couldn’t believe it. His mother was fawning all over Roy’s twenty-something bit of fluff, the sort of girl who’d have been granted no more than a sniff of distaste if Banks had brought her home. Still, he should have expected it. Roy was Banks’s younger brother by five years. He had grown up watching Banks do everything wrong and getting caught for it – staying out too late as a teenager, listening to the radio under the bedsheets when he should have been asleep, smoking, leaving home to go to college in London, joining the police – and Roy had keenly observed his parents’ reactions. Roy had learned well from his brother’s mistakes, and he had done everything right. Now, in his mother’s eyes, Roy could do no wrong, and even Arthur Banks, not given to expressions of any kind, didn’t seem to disapprove of Roy as much as he did of Banks. Which was odd, indeed, Banks thought, as Roy was the consummate capitalist.
Roy sat down, first pulling at the razor-sharp crease of his black suit trousers. ‘So how’s life at the cop shop?’ he asked, looking away even before he’d got the words out, indicating to Banks that he didn’t have the slightest iota of interest.
‘Fine,’ said Banks.
‘Is that your Renault out there?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Not bad. Only it looks new. Been on the take?’
‘Oh, you know me, Roy. A few thousand here, a few thousand there.’
Roy laughed. Corinne and Ida Banks, best friends now, came through with the drinks on a tray at the same time Geoff came back from the shop. ‘Sorry, they didn’t have any Perrier,’ he said. ‘I got this other stuff Ali recommended. St… something or other… I can’t pronounce it. OK?’
‘It’ll do,’ said Roy. ‘Be a good bloke and pop it in the fridge, would you, Geoff?’
Geoff seemed only too pleased to oblige.
‘Isn’t this lovely?’ said Ida Banks, handing out the drinks. ‘We can have our own little family party before the rest of our guests arrive. Corinne tells me she’s an accountant, Roy.’