‘Don’t be so sure. I don’t like geezers who slag me.’
‘Do you read the newspapers?’
‘You think I’m a dummy, don’t you?’
‘I was just wondering if you knew about the painting that was stolen the other day.’
‘Yeah, the old-fashioned one.’ Weech sighed. ‘No fence would touch it. It’s too big. It’s worthless. There’s a reward for it, ain’t there?’
‘Right, right,’ said Hood. ‘But the interesting thing is — I know who’s got it. Yes, Weech, she’s delivering it to me tonight. She might be there now. How about that?’
Weech peered at Hood, then picked up his whisky and drank it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He belched and said, ‘You’re full of crap.’
‘You don’t believe me?’ Hood took the strip of wrinkled canvas from his wallet. It was brown, with a close weave on one side and on the other flakes of dark cracked paint, like old flattened nail parings. He showed it, holding it against the lamp on the bar. He said, ‘That’s part of it. It’s being sent to the papers, an inch at a time.’
‘That’s a piece of rubbish,’ said Weech. ‘What is it, an old sticking plaster or what?’
‘It’s from the edge of the painting.’
‘I don’t see no picture. I think you’re slagging me again. Anyway, why tell me?’
‘I want you to know everything, Weech,’ said Hood. ‘Oh, yes. Remember the Euston bomb? Well, the girl that did it lives at my house — she’s hiding, too. Albacore Crescent, Deptford.’
‘Hey,’ said Weech, showing an interest in the address that he had not shown in anything else Hood had said, ‘I live just behind it!’
‘What else do you want to know?’ Hood searched his mind for more: he wanted to startle the man, to rouse him with a secret. ‘The girl’s name is Brodie. She planted the bomb, but she didn’t make it. That was another kid, Murf. He’s supposed to be tough, like you. But he hasn’t got your money, so he’s more dangerous.’
‘You’re making this up. I think you’re a nutter.’
‘You levelled with me, Weech — about all those stolen goods — so I’m levelling with you.’
‘Stolen goods,’ Weech sneered. ‘I’m into the big stuff, Arab exports — get it? I wouldn’t even tell you. But that picture — they say it’s worth about a million quid.’
‘Not a million,’ said Hood. ‘But you could get ten grand as a reward.’
‘So I just say, look at Valentine’s place on Albacore Crescent.’
‘Number twenty-two.’
‘Yeah, and it’s all mine,’ said Weech. He gave a shallow laugh. ‘But if this was really true you wouldn’t be telling me.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Then I’ll tell the coppers, I’ll tell the American Embassy, I’ll cough it to the News of the World.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘I fucking will.’
‘You don’t need the money. You’re loaded.’
‘I’ll do it for laughs. I’ll do it because you slagged me. I’ll get me picture in the papers.’
‘I almost forgot,’ said Hood. ‘I’ve got two kilos of opium at my house — that should interest the police. Here, it looks like this.’ Hood took out the cigarette he had made earlier in the evening and put it in Weech’s hand.
‘You’re joking. It’s just an ordinary cigarette. Look, it even says Silk Cut on the paper.’
‘Watch,’ said Hood. Taking it from Weech and holding it in his cupped hand he broke it open, spilling it into his palm. ‘That’s tobacco,’ he said, prodding the brown strands, ‘but see that powder, those yellow grains? Opium — all the way from the Golden Triangle.’
Weech’s face creased with interest. He said, ‘You’re as bad as me.’
‘No.’
‘Maybe worse,’ said Weech. ‘But I could tell you stories. I deal on the continent. Arab hardware. Get it?’ He grinned. ‘Bang-bang. You in the picture?’
Hood said, ‘You’re a fucking punk.’
‘You’re pleading for it,’ said Weech in a whisper, pushing at the bar with his large hands.
‘You’re a gutless son of a bitch.’
‘I’ll nail you, straight I will.’
‘You couldn’t nail a daisy.’
Weech was trembling, working his fingers, nodding his head and gasping as if he had been deprived of air. He hissed, ‘You bastard.’
Hood straightened up and smiled. ‘Well, I really must be going now. Nice talking to you, Weech. Keep your thumb on it.’
And he was out of the door, stepping into the half-dark of the summer evening. The iron railway bridge and the derelict houses and the high weeds bled into a dim motionless shadow that, in this faltering sunset, was like a memory of light, incomplete and simplifying and without warmth. There was a moon, and traces of stars, but the day remained, proceeding slowly to the edge of night with the season’s lengthened hesitation. Hood started towards the street, then turned back to the path that led through the tall cow parsley to the station. At the opening of this dishevelled glade, where some of the pub’s customers had parked their cars, he waited until the door banged and he saw Weech appear, swinging his arms.
‘Over here,’ Hood called, keeping his voice low.
Weech blundered towards him, chewing on rage and paddling with his fists. Angry, he seemed too large for his plum-coloured suit. When he was about ten feet away, Hood took a paper bag from his pocket and threw it to the path. It startled Weech: he jerked his face sideways, twisting his shoulders, as if he thought it might explode.
‘Pick it up,’ said Hood softly.
‘I’m going to nail you.’
He came at Hood, lunging with his arms out, landing a glancing punch on his upper arm. But Hood batted him away, and Weech falling back kicked at him; he was tall and nearly toppled himself with the kick.
‘Pick it up!’
Hood, breathless, had sobbed the command. He took Weech by the shoulders, and pulled him forward and down as he raised his knee quickly, cracking it into Weech’s face. Weech started to fall, but Hood kept him up, punching him erect with the force of his fists, catching the underside of Weech’s jaw and lifting his head. Then he let Weech drop. He fell backwards, against a car and slipped down, leaning into each contour as flexibly as a descending snake. Weech’s trouser cuffs were hitched to his knees and his sleeves to his elbows; his head was knocked over to one side, his ear against his shoulder. Hood knew he had broken the man’s neck, for when he pulled him away from the car Weech’s head flopped backwards from the ledge of his shoulder and hung there staring blindly behind him, tugging his abnormally long throat. The failing light gave the horrible translucence of a membrane to his white throat.
Kicking at it with his heel, Hood opened the small side window of the car and unlocked the door. It was a Volkswagen, and though he had no trouble jumping the wires and starting it he could not get Weech into the back seat. He pushed on the man’s legs, but the small space would not contain him. So Weech rode in front, propped by the seat and nodding each time Hood touched the brake. He drove fast up Bell Green and then along the bus route towards Brockley Rise.
They were such simple skills, like steadying a rifle to hit a target: following the bully and setting him up, faking a left to land a right, hot-wiring a car, and finding a place to dispose of the body — that wooded mound he saw was called One Tree Hill. It was all easy, and if there was blame it was in taking advantage of the simplicity of it. He had not known it would end like this, on a dimly lit path above Peckham. He had thought he would feel triumphant, but he was only angry and his fingers stank of error. It was furiously petty; the man was worth nothing; no one knew. But he was not sorry. The memory of a thing not done was worse than any deed. He had never wanted to go back, and now he had proved he couldn’t.