“Hundred and twenty thousand,” Darren said. “More, depending which version you heard.”
Keith’s face showed no understanding; his skin was the color of old putty and his eyes were glazed over.
“What’s up with you?” Darren said. “Don’t you ever listen to the news?”
Keith shook his head: not quickly, not far.
“Over a hundred grand in the time it takes you to wipe your arse.”
Across the kitchen, Rylands turned his head, but decided to say nothing. He hadn’t taken to Darren the first time he set eyes on him, less than five minutes ago when a hammering had brought him to the front door, Darren standing there like a skinhead with a serious personality problem.
“Hey, look,” Darren said now. “You got a radio over there. Switch it on, bet there’s some bulletin. Something new.”
He was staring at Rylands, pointing at the portable Sanyo on top of the fridge.
“It doesn’t work,” Rylands said. “Needs new batteries.”
It had needed batteries for weeks and he’d bought a fresh set, EverReadies, last time he’d been to the corner shop, but he’d be buggered if he was going to let Darren know that. Ordering him around in his own house. He wanted to find out the news, let him spend his own money, buy a paper.
“Less than ten minutes,” Darren was saying to Keith, “and they were out of there with over a hundred thousand quid. You know how come?”
Keith squinted up at him. “’Cause they planned it?”
“Course they planned it, lamebrain. That’s not what I meant.”
“Less of the names,” Rylands said.
“They got away with it,” Darren went on “because they didn’t go in empty-handed. They were tooled up. They had a gun. Shotgun. No one argues with that.”
“Who d’you think you are?” Rylands said. “You ever stop to listen to yourself? Something out of The Untouchables?”
“What the fuck’s that when it’s out?”
“See what I mean? Don’t even know you’re born.”
“Come on,” Darren said, moving back towards the kitchen door. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Keith’s not well,” Rylands said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“Bollocks.”
“I am feeling rough,” Keith said.
Darren took hold of the front of his sweater and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go.”
“You,” Rylands said. “Let him alone.”
Darren’s face tightened, eyes suddenly tense and dark-then he laughed. “C’mon, Keith,” he said, still looking at Rylands with the cocky grin the laugh had become. “We’re off.”
“Keith …” Rylands started.
“’S’all right, I’ll be fine.”
Rylands turned back to where he was washing dishes at the sink. The water was already turning cold, the surface swimming in grease. Bits of bacon rind and fragments of eggshell nudged against his fingers. If that was the sort Keith was knocking round with, no wonder he was in trouble.
“Did you hear what happened at that bank?” Marjorie Carmichael said to Lorna as she was unlocking the front door after lunch. “Shotguns and everything. We were lucky that didn’t happen to us.”
It was only then that Lorna realized who it was had come up to her the previous evening, asking if they were still open, promising that he would be back.
Eighteen
“You weren’t serious, were you? What you said before?”
“Before what?” Darren was concentrating on getting his score over eleven thousand, his previous best on this machine.
“You know, about … well, you know.”
“Look, either spit it out or stop going on and on. You’re putting me off.”
“I meant,” Keith said, “about the gun.”
“Hey! Why not yell it out a bit louder, might be a couple of blokes over the back never heard what you said.” Concentration shot, game over, Darren had been well and truly zapped. “There, see. See what you done?”
Back on the pavement, blinking at the light, Darren ran a hand across the top of his head; his hair had a nice feel to it now, not brittle but soft, a soft fuzz less than half an inch thick.
“Something you got to understand,” he said, “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life just hanging round, pulling jobs for a few quid. That’s what you want you better say so now. Me, I’m going to do something with my life. Get some money, real money, get noticed.”
With a quick hunch of his shoulders Darren headed off towards Slab Square and, after a few moments’ hesitation, Keith hurried after him.
“So what do you think, Marjorie? Do you think I should get in touch with the police and tell them or what?”
It had to be the fourth time Lorna had asked-more or less the same question, more or less the same words-fourth or fifth time in the last hour. Lorna, not wanting to appear too anxious, too nervous either. “Lorna,” Marjorie had said, “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but you don’t think you’re being a little paranoid?”
Is that what she was? Or was it the opportunity to spend some more time with Kevin Naylor that had her seeing the would-be robbery merchant in otherwise innocent people?
“It’s a shame Becca isn’t here,” Marjorie said. “She’d know what to do.”
Becca knew what to do all right: stay home, send in a sick note, and work hard for the sympathy vote. Good riddance, Lorna thought; she and Marjorie could manage the branch fine without her pernickety assistance.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t conjure up the youth’s face, not exactly-the hair and the nose and the eyes but not a whole face. The walk, though, she could picture that, the slow, cocky strut along the pavement-wasn’t that the same walk as the one towards her counter, only the day before?
Here, fill that. Don’t keep me waiting.
Well, call in another time, eh?
“I’m going to do it,” Lorna said, and reached for the phone. The number was on the card that Kevin Naylor had given to her.
“I’m sorry,” Lynn Kellogg said, responding to the call. “He’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?”
“Yes,” Lynn said, when Lorna had finished. “I’ll be sure that he gets it. I can’t promise when he’ll be able to get back to you, though. It’s pretty hectic here today.”
Lorna put down the receiver, looked into Marjorie’s fleshy, inquiring face, and forced a smile. “Well, that’s that. Nothing else I can do now.”
Naylor had been thinking about his conversation with Divine, Mark sitting there in the car, giving advice for all the world as if, where relationships were concerned, he knew something about it. And then parading this scuzzy list of one-night stands and knee tremblers as some kind of proof that he understood women. What Divine knew about women could be written on the inside of a toilet door and usually was.
“Be hard,” Divine had said. “Stand firm, it’s the only way. Whatever you do, don’t let on you care.”
Yes, Naylor thought, and see where that’s got you.
The longest relationship Divine had ever had with a woman came in short of ten minutes.
It seemed likely that after abandoning the Volvo and the Granada, the gang had doubled back on themselves, possibly using as many as four other vehicles. The only one not wearing a mask was variously described as a slim male, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, and an attractive young woman wearing rather heavy eye shadow and with the faintest suggestion of a moustache. The masks the others had worn had been stolen from a party wear and fancy dress shop the night before and comprised Mickey Mouse, Michael Jackson, the Amazing Spiderman, and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The charred remains of what appeared to be several track suits and trainers, together with what could previously have been polystyrene masks, had been found on a patch of waste ground close to the A60, north of Loughborough. The ashes were on their way to the forensic laboratory without a great deal of hope attached.
The possible identity of the young villain not averse to disguising himself as a woman was currently testing the resources of the Home Office computer.