My cup of tea and Danish pastry finally arrived. The tea was coffee without milk but loads of sugar, and the Danish was a piece of dried-up Dundee cake. Like I said — Dave’s got a memory like an ox.
While I chewed, I thought about this Josh Lee for a bit, then about his mate Rawlings. When I finished thinking, Slow Kid hadn’t even touched his coffee, but Dave had several empty plates in front of him and was looking round for more.
“When this Lee was asking questions,” I said, “did Sean get the idea that it was for someone operating in this area? Someone Lee was working for?”
Slow shrugged. “Dunno. Could be. One of the big outfits, you mean? But what about Eddie Craig?”
“Just what I was thinking, Slow. What about Eddie Craig?”
Yes, Craig. Anybody trying to survive round here has to remember that name. The likes of Josh Lee might be nasty, but Eddie Craig is poison. He runs the big operations in this area — the protection, the clubs, the illegal gambling, the prostitutes, the pornography. And there are a few exotic substances changing hands at the odd club or amusement arcade too.
There are some small fry who get away with running their own little franchises out of the night clubs and that sort of thing. But God help them if they get ideas above their station and think about branching out. Eddie has his ear firmly to the ground and stamps on anyone who even smells like a rival. And when you’ve been stamped on by Eddie Craig, you stay stamped on. This bloke is big time.
Officially he’s as clean as a whistle, of course. If you checked his criminal record, you’d probably find he’s gone straight as a die, your honour, ever since he was nicked for riding his bike without lights in 1954. It was such a shock to his dear old mother that her little Edward could have got himself into trouble with the police that he’s been a model citizen ever since, in honour of her memory.
I’m clean, too, obviously. But I do it by being a bit cleverer than the plods. Craig has the sort of organisation where blokes are queuing up to take the rap for him and thank him for the privilege. He possesses enough dosh to make it worth their while, and the clout and the hard men to make it not worth arguing the toss, inside or out.
If somebody else was operating on Craig’s territory, it could get quite interesting. If two of those somebodies were Rawlings and Lee, it could be a real pleasure.
Despite the sweet coffee and the Dundee cake, I felt a smile coming on.
7
When Lisa rang, it was to remind me that I was supposed to be giving her a lift to the station. Which station? Oh yeah. She was going to Sheffield on a course. Away for three days. How could I have forgotten that?
Soon I was on the road, heading for Lisa’s place a couple of villages away. She lives in a mid-nineteenth century terraced house right on her village’s main street, but with a view from the garden at the back that you could die for, if that’s what turns you on. Me, I’m more interested in the things that tell you people have lived here for a long time. Weavers’ windows or Yorkshire ranges. Keeping cellars or those stone steps worn into hollows by centuries of feet. Or, in this case, the carved stone set high up in the centre of the row of houses giving the date and the name: Balaclava Terrace, 1895.
It was a strange custom they had in those days to name streets and terraces after famous battles, even ones the British had lost. Oh, we had six hundred men slaughtered at Balaclava, did we? Russians shot our troops to bits with cannon? Thousands of widows, orphans and bereaved parents in some working class areas now, are there? Jolly good, we’ll sling up a few new houses to commemorate the glorious event. Eh, what?
Funnily enough, the Dabbling Dukes did much the same on their vast estates, only in their case it wasn’t houses, but trees they planted. There are plantations called Ladysmith, Culloden and Corunna. Even Spitfire Bottoms. But then the Dukes also planted woods named after their racehorses when they won a big prize. That many trees must have done the landscape a world of good, but you can’t help finding their motives a bit puzzling.
Still, these terraces are solid and well-built, which is a bit more than you can say for some of the rubbish that’s been put up since.
Lisa has done her little house up in what I think of as single girl’s style — you know, lots of frilly curtains and chair covers, floral patterns and porcelain nicknacks, rugs and dried flower arrangements and pot pourri. Everything smelling very fragrant and always in its right place. There’s even a teddy bear on the bed. Awful, the place is. You couldn’t really ask for anything more different from my house on Sherwood Crescent. A colour TV, a freezer, and plenty of beer in the fridge. Now, that’s a home.
“What did you say this course was that you’re going on?”
Lisa gave me that exasperated look that says ‘you’re an ill-mannered pillock, but you’re a bloke, so I don’t expect any better.’
“Heritage Management,” she said, but from her tone of voice she might as well have been saying “How to turn water into wine”. She sounded reverential, almost. I gathered that this was the latest in-thing, like all those American executive gimmicks that came round in the 1980s, when I was in another life. As soon as you’d got your head round one of them, it was totally out of date and the next one had come along. To be in management, it seemed as though you had to follow the old eighty — twenty rule. Eighty per cent of your time reading memos and going on management courses, and the other twenty per cent actually managing.
“Right. Heritage Management. Who else will be there?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Heritage managers maybe?”
“Oh, the usual crowd, I suppose.”
She said this a bit too casually. It made me suspicious, though I couldn’t think what she might be hiding from me. Another bloke she’d met somewhere? That could only be a good thing from my angle. It was time I moved on. If Lisa was going to make the break, that would be all the better. God alone knew why I couldn’t get round to doing it myself. It had never been a problem in the past. Perhaps I had a touch of social constipation — there was something I had to get rid of, but the system was bunged up. Send for the sexual senna pods and stand clear of the loo.
“Middle-aged biddies from WI groups and Local History evening classes at the Tech then?”
“That’s about it, I expect,” said Lisa placidly. She gave me no argument, you see. A warning sign in a woman, that is. McClure’s Rule number three. I call it the Adam and Eve Rule — never trust a woman when she agrees with you.
There wasn’t much conversation on the way to the station in Mansfield. Lisa had a suitcase with her in the car, and it was only when I happened to glance at this that it dawned on me she was stopping the night somewhere. Presumably a couple of nights. I don’t know why this hadn’t clicked before, but there it was.
“Where are you staying then?”
“Stones, I’ve told you all this. Weren’t you listening?”
Why do you have to justify yourself to women all the time?
“I’ve forgotten. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“The seminars are in a hotel. We stay there overnight as well. It’s all organised as part of the course, and they book the rooms for us.”
“I see. You and all the other course members will be there then. In this hotel.”
“Yes.”
“All the middle aged biddies.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I’ll be back on Friday.”
“Okay.” We turned into the station car park and Lisa hopped out. There wasn’t much time to spare before her train arrived, so all I got was a quick peck on the cheek before she went off to meet the biddies. I could barely muster the grin as she walked off.