‘I still have my bad days,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m a lot better than I was. You know that.’
He was right. When he first took those bullets in the spine, I was terrified he was going to die on me. As soon as I realised he would make it, I had a different problem. He kept telling me he’d have preferred to die rather than face life paralysed and I know he blamed me for it. If he hadn’t been working for the firm then he would still be walking. It was a visit I organised from two former members of the parachute regiment, who’d had their legs blown off by roadside bombs, that finally started to convince my brother his life wasn’t over. That was just the beginning though. The rest has been a daily struggle that I think he’s finally starting to win.
‘I’ve settled for where I am and who I am,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’d have the use of my legs back in a second,’ and he clicked his fingers to illustrate his point, ‘but, I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m probably a better person these days than I was before… you know… all this.’
‘You are slightly less of a cunt than you were,’ I conceded.
‘Thanks. Anyway, life is reasonably sweet,’ then he added a little self-consciously, ‘I’ve been seeing a bit of that Linda.’
I couldn’t place her for a moment, ‘Linda that works the bar at the Cauldron?’
‘Fuck no,’ he laughed, ‘she looks like Andy Murray in drag.’
I laughed, ‘actually, you’re right, she does a bit.’
‘Then credit me with some taste. No, I’m talking about Linda who dances for us at Cachet.’
‘That Linda? Fuck me Our young’un, how did you manage that?’
‘Used me charm bro, used me charm,’ he said smugly and I was pleased for him.
‘I would have bet against you landing her if you’d used Rohypnol but, well done. What is she though? Nineteen?’
‘No,’ he scoffed, ‘she’s twenty-four.’
‘I wondered why you kept her on. You usually retire them at twenty. So only half your age then? Reckon it’ll last?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care, life’s too short to worry about that shite isn’t it? How many relationships do you know that last forever. Look at you and that Laura bird.’
‘You have a point.’ Was there actually a time when I had considered me and my mad ex Laura to be a permanent item? If there was, it was a lifetime ago.
‘Anyway, we’re just enjoying ourselves and we can still do stuff, you know sexually and that. I don’t mind you asking.’
‘Asking? I wasn’t asking and I won’t be. Whatever you and her get up to in the wee small hours has got fuck all to do with me.’
‘I’m only saying that I can still do stuff. I know some of the lads think I can’t but I can and…’
I put my fingers in my ears at that point and started chanting, ‘La, la, la, la, la, I’m not fucking listening, la, la, la, la.’
Trouble with Our young’un is he is almost impossible to embarrass, so he just rose to the bait, ‘she’s got a load of toys and she does all sorts of stuff with them. Did I ever tell you how she does this thing with her finger…’
‘Oh Christ no, I’ve gone blind, shut up man before I puke. Have another pint for fuck’s sake.’
He laughed, ‘You’re just a prude, that’s your trouble. No, I’m heading off after this one.’
‘Bloody hell. You’re a changed man Danny. It must be that young lass of yours.’
‘It isn’t just that,’ he informed me ruefully, ‘hangovers aren’t much fun when you’re hauling yourself around in one of these things. Were you planning on stopping like? I wouldn’t have thought this was your sort of place.’
‘No, it’s okay. I’ve got to be off too.’
‘Back home to wor lass?’
‘Not just yet.’
‘She hasn’t seen you for a fortnight.’
‘I know,’ I admitted, ‘but I need a word with Sharp. I’ll head home after that.’
His face became a grimace, ‘oh god.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not still…’ and he didn’t finish but he gave me a look like I was some new species of idiot he’d only just discovered.
‘What?’ I repeated.
‘You know what,’ he informed me, ‘and you know my view an’ all, so I don’t know why you are bothering to tell me.’
‘I know your view but I thought it might have altered since we last spoke.’
‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘it hasn’t. I can’t see what good could come of it.’
‘Well, as always, Our young’un, I respect your opinion.’
‘Aye and, as always, you’ll fuckin’ well ignore it,’ he told me as I drained the last dregs of my pint.
I was up on the roof of the Cauldron staring out at the night sky and I was here to meet Sharp. Down below me, the city was bustling along, lights gleaming from every window. Detective Inspector Sharp was my main man in Northumbria Constabulary. We had a few on the payroll but Sharp was our best-paid operative and his expertise and information had helped dig me out of more than one hole before now. He liked to meet me here because the building was right on the edge of Chinatown and he could access it through the big Chinese restaurant next door. He would simply flash his warrant card at the waiters then come up the fire escape.
He was looking stressed when he arrived but I didn’t have time to ask after his well-being and I was keen to get home to Sarah. Sharp was the best I had at finding people but, surprisingly for him, he’d drawn a blank this time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said when he’d concluded his explanations, or were they just excuses?
‘I thought finding people was your speciality?’
‘It was,’ he protested, ‘it is,’ and he shrugged, ‘but you might have more luck with some of the old crew.’
‘Why me?’
‘Hey, I’m not being lazy. They just don’t like talking to coppers, you know how those old villains are, always think they are gonna be fitted up for something they haven’t done.’
‘Whatever could have given them that idea?’
‘Aye well, that was then, this is now. In the seventies if you were banged up for something you didn’t do, it probably meant you’d gotten away with a lot of stuff that you did.’
‘So you’ve not found out anything?’
‘Only what we know already; your father left town suddenly one day, a couple of years before you were born. There was some sort of job down south, by all accounts, and he never returned home but he kept in touch with your ma for years afterwards. There’s people who’ve corroborated this. She used to go off and see him and always assumed the family would get back together in the end. Then one day, as the story goes, the calls and the letters from your father stopped and he disappeared for good.’
‘I was about two years old when that happened.’
‘It looks like he left your ma in the lurch to bring up two little boys on her own while he fucked off out of it. He wouldn’t be the first or the last to do that, would he? But there are no records of the man anywhere.’
‘So it’s possible something bad happened to him down south?’ I asked.
‘It’s possible,’ he admitted, ‘or he could have changed his name and emigrated to Australia. We just don’t know.’
I had never cared about what happened to my father before now. I had always taken the view that, since he walked out on ma, Danny and me when I was little and I don’t have any memories of the man, I didn’t give a fuck what became of him.
Then we had Emma and it changed my view almost overnight. I could never imagine a time when I would be happy to sit down and have a pint with the old git, assuming he was still alive, but I was curious to know what happened to him and to hear from his own mouth why he did what he did, mainly because of Emma. I wanted to be able to tell her something about him, to be capable of answering her questions about her grandfather when she grew older, so I’d asked Sharp to look into it for me. Danny figured we should just leave it as a mystery, because there was nothing the guy could say to either of us that we would actually want to hear.
‘So you reckon members of the old crew might know what really went off before he left the city?’