Maurie shook his head. ‘No.’
Dr Robert’s relief was tangible, but it vanished in a moment as Maurie drew a pistol from an inside pocket. Bizarrely, to Jack, it looked like a toy gun he’d had as a kid. But he was under no illusions about it being a toy. It shook so much in Maurie’s hand that he had to steady it with his other, both arms extended in front of him, the gun pointing across the table at Dr Robert.
His three friends were on their feet in a moment, chairs toppling backwards to raise dust in the candlelight.
‘For Christ’s sake, Maurie!’ Dave’s voice was elevated by alarm.
Maurie’s smile was grotesque. ‘Amazing the acquaintances you make during eighteen months behind bars. And the things they can get you when you really need them.’
Luke’s voice was more controlled, but Jack could hear the tension in it.
‘Don’t be stupid, Maurie. Nothing to be gained by this. You barely knew Flet. He meant nothing to you.’
Maurie’s gaze was fixed on Dr Robert. ‘This isn’t for Flet,’ he said, and suddenly the light of all the candles seemed to flicker more brightly in his eyes. ‘This is for Jeff. Poor Jeff who thought he could fly. Poor Jeff, who was my best and only friend all through childhood, who stood up for me against the bullies. Who was always there for me, whatever the problem. Poor Jeff, who never had the life he should have.’ His eyes held Dr Robert helpless in their thrall. ‘Seduced into taking drugs, and God knows what else, by you, you bastard.’
And he pulled the trigger three times, pumping his bullets straight into Dr Robert’s chest, the recoil almost toppling Maurie backwards in his chair.
The noise was deafening in the confined space, and the doctor flew back against the wall, then slowly slid down to the floor leaving a trail of blood glistening on the painted plaster behind him.
The sound of the gunshots seemed to take an eternity to fade, and left them feeling as if their ears had been plugged by cotton wool.
Dr Robert sat on the floor, back against the wall, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open, blood staining his camel coat a dark brown.
Dave gawped at him in horror. ‘Jesus Christ, Maurie, you’ve killed him.’
Maurie lowered his hands to rest them on the table, but still he held the gun. ‘It’s what I came to do. No knighthood for Dr Robert.’
Luke bent down to check the doctor’s pulse. He caught Jack’s eye and shook his head, then stood up again.
Maurie said, ‘You’d better go. These walls probably contained the sound of the shots, but who knows who else might have heard them?’
Jack frowned, panting hard and still in shock. ‘We’re not going without you, Maurie.’
‘Yes, you are.’ Maurie was quite calm now. Even his hands seemed to have stopped shaking. ‘I only have a week or two left in me. Maybe not even that. You boys... well, you might all have a whole wheen of years left among you. So go and live your lives, and make the most of what you have left of them.’
‘Maurie...’ Luke took a step towards him.
‘Go!’ Maurie raised the gun to point it at him.
Luke was startled. ‘You wouldn’t!’
Maurie forced a grin. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ He turned the gun to press the barrel to his temple. ‘But unless you really want to watch me blow my brains out, I suggest you go now.’
Jack said, ‘You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?’
‘I am, Jack. Quick and easy. And gone. But...’ He reached into his pocket with his free hand and drew out a white envelope, which he placed on the table in front of him and pushed towards Jack. ‘I figure maybe I owe you this, though part of me says you still don’t deserve it. But, well... I never promised Rachel I’d take her secret with me to the grave.’
Jack felt a chill of apprehension as he reached for the envelope.
‘She never had the abortion, Jack.’
Jack’s face stung as if he had been slapped, and he felt Luke and Dave’s eyes on him.
‘Oh, I know you took her to that woman’s place. But in the end she couldn’t go through with it. And didn’t tell you because she didn’t want you to think you had to stand by her. Though, in my book, that would have been the decent thing to do. Even though you weren’t Jewish. Anyway, the only person she told was me, and she made me promise not to tell.’
Jack’s world had stopped turning on its axis. He stood paralysed. ‘You mean she had my baby?’
‘She did, Jack. Kid doesn’t know.’ He chuckled. ‘Hardly a kid now, though.’
Jack was almost afraid to ask. ‘And Rachel?’
Maurie nodded towards the envelope. ‘You’ll find an address in the envelope. Go there at three tomorrow. Someone will meet you and tell you all about Rachel.’
The envelope trembled in Jack’s fingers. It felt as if it held his destiny in it. A coda to a life that had never lived up to his hopes for it. An average life, stultifying in its ordinariness, except for those few extraordinary weeks in 1965. The days of their lives, Luke had called them, and that’s what they were.
‘Now go!’ Maurie’s voice echoed out into the hall.
But Jack rounded the table, ignoring the gun.
Maurie panicked. ‘What are you doing?’
Jack leaned over and kissed his forehead. ‘Thank you, Maurie.’ And he saw tears spring into his old friend’s eyes.
‘For fuck’s sake get out of here. I hate farewells.’
The three old men stopped by the door, and looked back at the shrunken figure who had once been their lead singer. But they didn’t see the shrivelled old man about to put a bullet in his head. They saw the plump young singer who had once auditioned for Scottish Opera and had the voice of an angel. Maurie. Their friend. And not one of them could bring himself to say goodbye.
They had reached the alley where Dave forced open the service door before they heard the shot.
A single shot, clear and pure, like Maurie’s voice had been once.
Epilogue
They drove up the hill past suburban semis on their left, and on their right what looked like a city park abandoned to the vagaries of nature behind a wall and fence. Gloomy and neglected. Long grass and tangling briar, dead trees in among the living, stark in their leaflessness.
At first, Ricky had driven Luke’s car through the London traffic with meticulous care born of fear. That Luke had trusted him with it was flattering, but he was terrified of bumps or scrapes, and his confidence on strange roads in a strange car was not high. But after half an hour he had begun to relax a little.
The GPS burbled out its instructions. A woman’s voice that sounded uncannily like Margaret Thatcher. Ricky preferred to rely on the video screen to map out their progress, and the orange arrow that kept them right. His grandfather sat beside him. Silent. A black hole. Lost in thoughts he was not about to share. Ricky dragged his eyes from the road for a moment to look at him.
‘Are you ever going to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘At least tell me what happened to Maurie. I deserve to know that.’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’
‘Trust me, Rick, you really don’t.’
Ricky fell back into a semi-sulk. Then, as they reached the top of Brunswick Park Road, he said, ‘Luke offered me a job.’
‘I know.’
‘He told you?’
‘Yes.’ Jack looked at his grandson for the first time. ‘Can you do it?’
Ricky snorted derisively. ‘Of course I can. He said I could stay with him and Jan. He also said I’d have to get my National Insurance sorted out as a freelance, then we could talk about a contract and terms.’
‘It’s a great opportunity, Rick. To get away from home. Break the cycle. See a bit of the world.’