A Line of Blood (15 page)

I made hot chocolate for Max, and we sat in silence in the kitchen as he drank it. Then I remembered the red carrier bag my mother had given me. Inside it was a canvas army-issue bag with a leather shoulder strap. Max had opened the pockets, drawn out cigar boxes filled with lead weights, with delicately tied salmon flies, with painted steel lures.

My father had promised his fishing bag to me. But as the years had passed and I’d shown no interest in catching and killing fish I suspect he’d forgotten his promise.

‘Cool,’ Max had said, when he had opened every pocket. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

Now I lay on my back on Max’s bed waiting for him to fall asleep. I was a fool, an emotional incontinent: I should never have burdened him with what I knew. As we lay, silent in the near-darkness, I dared not look at my son.

I wanted to ring my mother. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was to have deserted her, how I hadn’t known what else to do. I wanted to tell her too how sorry Millicent was. I wanted her to know that I missed her, that I loved her, that more than anything I missed my father. But it was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t ring.

At last Max found sleep, wheezy and restless. I got to my feet as quietly as I could and went to close the bathroom window.

I decided not to replace the keys in Millicent’s bag. Let her wonder where they’d gone. I brushed my teeth and lay on my own bed. After an hour, Millicent came upstairs and undressed carefully. I feigned sleep. She touched my arm, but I did not respond. I heard her brushing her teeth in the bathroom. Then she lay down beside me and fell asleep.

I got up and rang Fab5. The phone rang twice, then went to his answering machine.

‘This is Fab5. Check you.’

‘Fab5, no one has said check you since 1992. Seriously, it just sounds weird in an Edinburgh accent.’ I hung up.

Five minutes later he rang back.

‘What’s up?’

‘Hello, Fab5.’

I heard a woman’s voice and wondered if it was someone I knew. Then the sound went hissy and I guessed Fab5 had covered the receiver with his hand. His voice sounded distant but enclosed, as if he were shouting into a cup. ‘Friend … touch of the old maritals …’ The woman’s voice said something I couldn’t make out. Fab5 laughed. I thought I could hear the sound of a kiss. Someone said
mmm
.

‘Fab5,’ I shouted.

He removed his hand from the phone. ‘What’s up?’

‘Covering the receiver with your hand doesn’t work.’

‘Yeah. Anyway.’

‘Who’s your lady friend?’

‘It’s three in the morning, Alex. You’ve not rung me to talk about me compromising my vow of celibacy. You OK?’

‘No.’

‘Want me to come over?’

‘You’re busy.’

‘Break out the Courvoisier. There in ten.’

And ten minutes later he was sitting opposite me at the kitchen table.

‘I have no Courvoisier.’

‘Relax, Alex.’

‘I have wine and I have good whisky.’

He looked at the labels, then tapped the whisky bottle.

‘Who do you know who drinks Courvoisier anyway?’

‘Figure of speech. A joke. Over your head. No big deal.’

I poured two large whiskies and offered him a Marlboro, which he declined.

‘Same question, Alex. What’s up? Millicent, no?’

‘Why would that be?’

‘Awfully highly strung.’

‘I think that may just be with you. She thinks you’re a little hypocritical when it comes to women. Which maybe you are. Who was that, anyway?’

Fab5 considered this for a moment. ‘Displacement, Alex.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t call me up to pop a cap in my ass for my sex life. What’s up?’

‘Pop a cap in your ass? What are you, fourteen?’

‘You have other friends but you called me. What’s going on?’

‘Wow, a real question, with real English words and everything.’

‘Like I said, you have other friends.’ He looked offended.

‘Sorry. Sorry, Fab5.’

He nodded. ‘OK.’

‘I’m a judgmental twat.’

‘Save it, you judgmental twat, and tell me what’s wrong.’

I told him, haltingly. It took me just under half the bottle. Fab5 didn’t drink much, but he did listen. At seven he put away the whisky bottle and made me drink two pints of water. At seven thirty he sent me upstairs to wash my hair and change my clothes, while he made coffee and went to the shop for orange juice. I showered and went into the bedroom for clean clothes. I was certain Millicent was awake, but she said nothing.

At eight Max appeared. He accepted Fab5’s presence without explanation. Fab5 made him French toast and took him to school. I went into the garden and lay on my back smoking cigarettes. From time to time I propped myself up on my elbow to drink coffee. Mostly I smoked. I saw Millicent through the bathroom window, but she didn’t come downstairs.

At nine Fab5 rang me and I went inside to let him in through the front door.

‘What’s happening to me, Fab5?’ I said.

‘Alex, friend,’ said Fab5, ‘right now you’re drunk, and you need to be drunk. You need to switch off that right brain, sometimes. Let your left brain take over.’

‘Other way round.’

‘You see?’ There was concern in his eyes. ‘You need to decompress, mate.’

‘All right. Thanks, Fab5. You’re a mensch.’

‘And you need to be out of this house, Habibi.’

As I was putting on my shoes I heard feet on the street outside, the sound of the gate being pushed back. Four knocks at our door.

Fab5 looked down at me, enquiring.

No, I thought back at Fab5,
no
. I shook my head.

A heavy shadow fell across the linen curtain in the front window. Someone was trying to look in. The shadow held position for a moment, then rotated gently, now to the right, now to the left. On our side of the curtain dust motes glistened, unburdened by gravity. The shadow disappeared.

Four knocks.

Fab5 looked down at me. What to do? I stood up, left my shoes unlaced, went to the door.

The stomach was slack, the shaved head puckered where it joined the neck. He weighed twice what I weighed, but behind the fat was a muscular belligerence: a strongman gone to seed. The tops of the arms, and the thighs, though, were crab-like, over-defined. There was dry skin around his mouth, but his smile was warm, and his eyes friendly.

‘Yes?’
Concentrate on the smile.

‘Mr Bryce? I wondered if we could talk?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You’re not Mr Bryce?’

‘No.’

‘Is this Mr Bryce?’ He gestured past me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, that is Mr Fab5.’ I fought back the urge to laugh. Fab5 shot me a look.

I hadn’t noticed the piece of paper in the man’s hand when I answered the door. All I had seen was the belly – reddened and blackened from the burst veins, purplish, really, folds curling down out of his t-shirt — and the tightness of the thighs. But I was looking down at the paper now, and so was he. I took it and stared at it for a moment. Traybourne and Nephew. Scaffolding services. £23,523.

I passed the invoice to Fab5. He looked at it, then passed it back to the man.

‘Is that your address?’

‘Yes. But I’m Mr Mercer.’

The man frightened me, but my fear seemed theoretical, like the fear of another man. It seemed unlikely to me that the scaffolder would hit me. Where were the police when you needed them, though?

I stepped out through the door. He flexed away to let me pass, nimble on swollen ankles.
Your legs and your belly don’t match.

I pointed to the neighbour’s front door.

‘That’s Mr Bryce’s house.’

I watched as he walked out of our gate, took five steps up the street, and opened the neighbour’s gate. The strength in those upper arms, those thighs. Not a man I wanted to cross. He leaned forwards and pressed the bell.

‘You won’t find him.’

‘What, mate?’

‘He’s dead.’

He folded his arms across his chest. He thought I was joking.

‘I found him.’

‘What, mate?’

‘Our neighbour, Mr Bryce, is dead. I found him.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Check out the padlocks.’

He was listening to me now. He believed me now.

‘What am I supposed to do about this?’ He held up the invoice.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘And you’re nothing to do with Mr Bryce?’

I shook my head.

‘This is a family business,’ he said. ‘Daughter’s sixteen next week. What do I tell her? What do I tell the bank?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’ And I was, now.

Twenty-three-and-a-half grand. That would sink you. He had a business, and a sixteen-year-old daughter. I could feel a pricking at the back of my eyes. This man was no threat to me. I could throw my arm around his heavy shoulders, and we could cry together.

‘He screwed us over too,’ I wanted to say.
‘Life was good before he came.’
God, but I was drunk.

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ I said. ‘Wish I could help.’

I went inside. Fab5 followed me in and shut the door.

‘Weird,’ he said.

‘Fab5,’ I said. ‘Fab5, I know I’m a little
reduced
right now, but did I understand that right?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The guy was trading from our address.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe?’

‘Aye, maybe. And maybe it’s a mistake.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘A mistake that’s happened twice.’

We opened the door again five minutes later; there was a police car parked across the street. Two uniformed officers watched as Fab5 and I made our way past them. The scaffolder was gone.

The manager at the Swedish seemed surprised to see me. Still he showed us to a table and took our breakfast order. We ate in silence, then Fab5 paid and left me there to meet Millicent.

‘Word to the wise, friend. Try to listen to what she’s telling you.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Good man.’

‘You’ve been drinking,’ she said as she sat down.

‘I’ve been drinking.’

‘Care to explain?’

‘Fab5 came over. He made breakfast for Max, so everything’s fine.’

‘That’s
super
.’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s all super.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because Fratboy5’s just so supergreat.’

‘Actually, he was pretty supergreat. Stayed up all night. Stayed sober. Took Max to school.’

‘And I thought he was some middle-aged sad-sack. Who knew?’

‘Right now he’s the reason I haven’t left you. Yet.’

‘Whoah. That came a little out of left field. Wait. What?’

‘I found his keys. Bryce’s, I mean. Both of them.’

She half-turned away from me, half-sniffed in the way she does when she’s upset, then turned to face me again. She had rearranged her features into something calm and quizzical, but the sinews in her neck were stretched tight.

‘You do this thing, Millicent,’ I said. ‘Your jaw makes this little side-to-side movement when you’re trying to keep your composure, and it’s doing it now. Sort of like you’re grinding your teeth in your sleep.’

Millicent’s eyes flicked away for a second, then flicked back. She was summoning her strength, steeling herself.

‘You had his front-door key, but not his deadlock. Which makes me wonder, Millicent, because if it was for plant-watering, or any of the thousand other innocent reasons why people have each other’s keys – letting the gas man in, say – then you’d have both.’

She turned away from me, half-sniffed again, but didn’t turn back.

‘And the tendons in your neck are standing right out, which isn’t very you. Anyhow, one key suggests something else, doesn’t it? A door readied for a special visitor. No? Feel free to interrupt me at any point.’ I was calm. My world was falling apart, but there was no anger in me. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps the lack of sleep.

She looked at me, and I could read nothing in her gaze.

‘You do know that I want to be wrong, Millicent.’

She met my eye, and nodded. A sad little gesture. Then she dropped her gaze and turned away, looked out into the street.

‘So then at some point he gave you the key to his back door, and my guess is that your relationship entered a new phase. The run of his house. He must really have liked you. Have I got any of this wrong yet?’

She said something I didn’t hear.

‘What?’

‘You aren’t wrong. Not in any important way.’

‘So Max would be at home, and when he was asleep you would leave him there, and climb the wall to the neighbour’s house.’

‘Alex …’

‘Do you think this is the sort of thing an eleven-year-old boy is likely to get over?’

‘Alex, listen to me …’

‘Max knows, I’m afraid.’

‘Max doesn’t know.’

‘I told him. I didn’t mean to. I as good as told him. And he’s a sensitive boy, with an agile mind. He must have figured out the rest.’

She got up, and I assumed that she was leaving. But she disappeared through the door to the lavatory.

My tongue found a sore where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek a few hours earlier. I worried at the scab with the tip of my tongue for a moment, then drained my coffee. It was cold, granular, but the familiarity of the taste comforted me.

Millicent reappeared, and went to the counter, where she exchanged words with the manager. She came back to the table and sat down opposite me.

‘I ordered coffee.’

I nodded. ‘How much worse is this going to get, Millicent?’

‘This is pretty bad, Alex. I’m sorry.’

She took my hands in hers, turned them over. ‘You always had such beautiful hands, Alex.’

‘Had?’

‘Would you please drop the grammar-Nazi pose for one moment? You
have always had
such beautiful hands, Alex. OK? They’re beautiful.’

‘The cuckold with the beautiful hands. That should be worth a compensatory shag with some pretty but slightly faded Crappy divorcée, don’t you think?’ I nodded towards a woman sitting alone at the long table by the till, reading the
Independent
. ‘What about her over there? Great hair. Highlights and everything.’

‘You said you wanted to hear what I had to say, Alex.’