How many dangers had Jack steered them past? There had been that strike the dockers went on after the war, the strike old Samuel thought he could break and that Jack had been left to fix, by paying off the union bosses and cracking the heads of a few hard chaws who would not be brought on board. And what about the time Clem Morrissy and his brothers had tried to set up that rival chain of garages and once again Jack had been called on to send in the muscle and keep the monopoly safe for Delahaye amp; Clancy? Always it was Jack who had done the dirty work, while Victor preened and boasted and played the gentleman. And then-
And then. Who would have thought Victor would have it in him to go out that way? Who would have thought it would affect him so disastrously, to discover himself sidelined? Who would have thought. There must have been something else; something else must have driven him to put a bullet through his heart, Jack was convinced of it. But what? If he could find out, maybe all was not lost, maybe something of all he had been working for could be saved.
Should he make one last try? Did he have it in him? He had always been a fighter, unlike Victor, who had everything handed to him on a silver platter. Yes, he would keep on, he would not be done down by that bastard Maverley and Victor’s wastrel sons. That was what would keep him going, the thought of the twins and Maverley using Victor’s death to defeat him. For they would get shot of him entirely if they could-oh, yes, they would. Already Maverley was putting the machinery in place that would grind him up and spit him out on the street. Did he imagine Jack had not seen him, after the funeral, sloping off for a quiet word with that detective, the one with the cow shit still on his boots, and his sidekick in the black suit? Jack could imagine the bookkeeper, with his gray jaw and his brown breath, counting out the insinuations like so many pounds, shillings, and pence, blackening the name of Jack Clancy, accusing him by innuendo and trying to undo by stealth all that he had put in place with such care, such finesse, such inventiveness.
The front was deserted, and yet, as he walked along, it seemed to him somehow that he was not alone. More than once he stopped, and turned, and peered back along the path beside the sea. Was it a shadow that had slipped behind that bush? He stood, his nerves tingling, and strained to see into the gloom, listening past the washing of small waves against the seafront wall. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard.
The grass was silver in the moonlight. He walked on, wanting to hasten his steps yet dreading the thought of reaching home. He pictured himself at the front door, easing the key into the lock and wincing at the crunch it made, and then standing in the shadows in the hallway, taking the measure of the house, trying to guess if Sylvia was asleep or if Davy was in, and feeling, too, the lingering damp warmth in his groin. The guilt that he felt was part of the thrill, always had been, although being thrilled by his guilt made him feel guiltier still. Such a tangle his life had always been. But who was it that had made it tangled? Who was there to blame, but himself?
He came to the house and stopped, and stood with his hands on the coolly clammy top bar of the gate, looking up at his own bedroom window, where a faint light glowed. Sylvia would be awake, propped up in bed, with her spectacles on the end of her nose, reading, or at her sewing. Since Victor’s death she had been sleeping badly-well, who had not? She would know, of course, or guess what he had been up to tonight. She would not know the details-she was not aware of Bella’s existence, he was confident of that-but she would not need to. He sometimes thought she was glad to be rid of him for so much of the time. She had her own life. He was not a prime requirement in it.
He lit a cigarette, turning away in case the match flame might be visible from that far window, and then walked aimlessly on, musing on his wife, of whom, if truth were told, he knew so little. He had loved her, once, this cool pale slender distant woman. He had wanted her because she was so different from the women he had known before he knew her, and whom he continued to know, despite being married. And she had loved him-loved him still, probably. Despite everything.
He passed by the bandstand. It looked eerie, a filigreed iron gazebo standing in the moonlight, silent and brooding.
Stop. Listen. There was definitely someone behind him.
He was suddenly hot with fear, and the skin on the back of his neck crawled. He dared not turn, but then he did turn. Still there was no one to be seen, yet he knew there was someone, the same someone who had started up after him when he left Bella’s house. “Who’s there?” he called out softly, feeling foolish, his voice unsteady. “Who is it? Show yourself!”
Silence, with the sense in it of stifled, jeering laughter. He slipped into the bandstand and stood in the webbed shadows there under the wrought-iron canopy. The concrete floor gave off a mingled smell of piss and fag ends. He thought with desperate yearning of how it would have been here earlier, when the mail boat was getting ready to set out, the passengers hurrying and people shouting farewells, the porters bumping luggage up the gangplank and the ship sounding its grave, portentous note. He could have lost himself in all that bustle, could have slipped away, and been safe.
A woman was approaching along the pavement. He shrank back into the shadows. Why had he come in here? The bandstand offered no protection, it was open on all sides. He turned his head this way and that. The woman’s footsteps were closer now. He seemed to hear his name spoken, very softly, but thought he must have imagined it. He was looking all around, trying to see in all directions. He almost laughed to think of himself, like a wooden doll, his head spinning and his eyes starting in fright. Always, behind everything, there was a part of him that stood back skeptically. Now he told himself he was being ridiculous, that there was no one after him, that all this fear and foreboding was the product of a fevered and guilty mind.
The woman had drawn level with the bandstand. He stepped forward, lifting a hand, ready to speak to her. He knew her! What was she doing here, at this hour? He began to say her name. The blow landed behind his right ear. He felt it distinctly, a dull shock without pain, and thought of a felled tree crashing to the ground. As he pitched forward he saw the moon slide sideways down the sky and disappear in darkness.
8
It turned out the Delahaye twins were at the party. Phoebe and Sinclair met one of them coming down the stairs just after they arrived. He was with his girlfriend-Phoebe recognized her but did not remember her name-and they stopped to talk, although they could hardly hear themselves above the din. The house was on a cobbled back street in the North Strand with an iron railway bridge running over it. It was a funny little tumbledown place, with everything on a miniature scale, the tiny windows, the low front door, the narrow staircase leading up to two cramped bedrooms and a bathroom hardly bigger than a cupboard. Whenever a train went past the entire place wobbled and shook like a jelly out of its mold. Breen, the fellow whose house it was, had been at college with Sinclair, and fitted well with the place, being short and stout, with a shock of black curls and rimless glasses that kept sliding down the glistening, concave bridge of his snub nose.
Neither Phoebe nor Sinclair cared much for parties, and they had come to this one only because they had worried no one else would, since poor Breen was not exactly known as a social magnet. To their surprise they found the house throbbing with people and noise. Breen came bustling to meet them, sweaty and shiny and snuffling with happy laughter. He took the bottle of Bordeaux they had brought and glanced appreciatively at the label and said there was wine open in the kitchen. He gestured with pride at the heaving mass of people around them. “The joint,” he said, “is jumping.” He wore plimsolls and checked tweed trousers hoist at half-mast by a pair of bright red braces and a shirt of emerald green with a floppy collar. He used to profess a desire to be a painter, Sinclair recalled. He worked in the Coombe hospital, delivering babies, “by the yard, like sausages,” as he said.