Authors: Nick Laird
‘Thanks for getting Jan by the way. It was brilliant, really.’
‘Nice to see her then?’
‘Oh aye, nice to see
all
of her.’
‘She
is
very pretty, great figure,’ Danny said judiciously.
‘Oh aye.’ They both stood in silence for a second, before Geordie, realizing that Danny was still thinking about Janice’s body, asked, ‘So what’s the crack? What happened?’
‘I chucked the offer for Ulster Water into the Thames.’ Danny sat down at the table. Geordie did the same.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I
mean
I stood on the Blackfriars Bridge and threw it all into the river.’
‘Fuck. Well what does
that
mean?’
‘It means I’m in a lot of trouble.’
‘Sure you never really liked that job.’
‘No.’
Geordie laughed. For a second Danny stared at the wooden surface of the table, in an effort to maintain the gravity of the situation, but then joined in. When the laughter trickled to a stop he shrugged suddenly, a little helplessly, and Geordie stood up, reached above the big blue fridge and opened the cupboard of booze. It looked like a town full of churches in there: vodka steeples, brick towers of whiskey, a Limoncello spire at the back.
‘What’ll you have?’
‘I’ve been on Bushmills so I’ll stick with that.’
‘Wise man…Here, your eye looks fucking awful.’ Geordie grinned, lifted two glasses from the crockery on the draining board and sat down at the table. He poured a couple of shots of whiskey and handed one to Danny.
‘So why’d you chuck it off the bridge?’
‘Not sure really…I went a bit mental. Kept thinking about home. And Ellen’s been sleeping with my boss.’
Geordie breathed out a long note-less whistle. ‘Gutted,’ he said. ‘When did you find out?’
‘Saturday night, after we shagged.’
The word didn’t taste right: they’d had sex, even, at a push, made love.
‘You shagged her? Is she going to stop seeing the boss?’
‘Oh no it’s all stopped already. Been over for six months apparently.’
‘Ach, well what are you whining about? Did you think she was a wee virgin?’
‘No of course not…’
‘You should be pleased she’s single at all. Girl like that, surprised her boss didn’t marry her.’
‘He’s
my
boss. And he is married already. He’s got three kids.’
‘Is that what it is? Have
you
ever slept with a married woman?’
‘No.’
‘Well what about someone who was going out with someone else?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And have you ever played away? When you’ve been seeing someone?’
‘A couple of times.’
Geordie raised his eyebrows at him and said, ‘And was Ellen cheating on someone when she was seeing your boss?’
He was enjoying his theatrical role as inquisitor a bit too much, Danny thought. He wouldn’t have made a bad barrister.
‘I don’t think so. No.’
‘So
you’ve
done worse than her…’
Geordie looked at Danny levelly then added, in a softer tone, ‘Did you go mad?’
‘Ballistic. And then I started to get upset.’
‘What–crying?’
‘Weirdly, yeah.’
‘Wanker.’
‘Cheers.’
‘To a new job.’ Geordie said, raising his whiskey to eyelevel.
‘Aye. Maybe even a new profession.’ Danny chinked the glass and sipped unhopefully.
‘
Mate
, she’s fucking lovely you know. Really fit, and sweet and friendly. You fucked up there, I reckon. You should be more concerned about chucking whatever you chucked off the bridge than who she’s slept with.’
‘Aye…’ So that was it over then. He’d expected the story of Ellen and Vyse to last for several hours when he first recounted it. If Albert was here he would have sympathized, analysed, and discussed the various consequences and outcomes. Then he would have recommended a self-help book entitled something like
The Ex-Factor
or a therapist who specialized in Jealousy Management. There should be more to the story than this. He had sat up crying for Christ’s sake. Even so, Danny couldn’t remember him and Geordie talking like this before: a conversation not constructed entirely from loose insults and brinkmanship. He could mention the other thing now. He
should
mention it now.
‘And I tell you what…this whole weekend’s making me think about Hughes. I feel sick to the stomach. I’ve let a lot of people down and I keep thinking about Hughes lying in the hallway, his leg all…’
Danny faltered. Geordie tapered his eyes into slits and then opened them wide, sighed and said, ‘That Hughes thing…It was nothing to do with you.’
‘I
know
, but I should have told someone about it. I could have…’
Geordie interrupted him, ‘No, I mean it was
nothing
to do with you. You want to know what happened?’
Danny kept silent. Geordie chewed at his thumbnail, then looked at it, and began talking again.
‘Me and Budgie were burgling the place. That’s what happened. I’d just been in there when I met you. I was coming from his house. Budgie’d just squealed off in his Corsa.’
Danny looked at him blankly.
‘What?’ He was speaking very softly.
‘It’s true. I was legging it from the house and then you comes walking up. Budgie had been using me to squeeze in through the back windows. No one else was small enough.’
‘What?’ Danny said again, even softer this time. He set his glass down on the dark table.
‘You
fuck
ing…’
‘It’s years ago.’
‘It’s fourteen years ago tomorrow. The Glorious Twelfth.’
‘Exactly.’
‘What happened in the house?’
‘Just what I said. They were burgling it and then…’
Danny interrupted, ‘
They
were burgling it?’
Geordie shrugged.
‘Okay. So
we
were burgling it. All right? And then I met you…’
Danny was staring balefully at him. Geordie paused and then said, slower, ‘I’d gone in through the back window, into the bathroom and then…let me get my fags.’
He got up and reappeared a moment later with the silver ashtray and his Regals. He lit one–preparing himself–and started again. Danny remained motionless and watched.
‘I came down through the window onto the cistern. It was white and my trainers left dirty marks on it from the grass. Then once I was in I wiped them off with some toilet roll and threw it into the bowl. Then I opened the back door for Budgie and Chicken. He was there too.’
‘What?’
‘Chicken. He was there too.’
‘Right.’
Geordie tapped some ash out and looked at something under the nail of his right middle finger. The smoke twisted into loose prehensile loops above the tabletop. Danny took one of the fags.
‘Chicken went to the living room to unplug the telly and video and Budgie went up the stairs. I was looking through drawers in the kitchen and there was a thump. Hughes must have been sleeping or something. It was hot–middle of July wasn’t it?–and all I heard was a thump, really loud and heavy, like a big sack of spuds dropped from a lorry. I went out into the hall and there was Hughes lying all twisted. No blood or anything though. Chicken was just stood there looking down at him and then up at the landing and then back down to Hughes. I looked up then too and Budgie was peering over the banister and looking half-scared with himself and half-pleased. You’d have thought he’d brought down a tiger or something.’
‘Just tell it straight.’
‘I’m not joking. This is what I remember…We were just frozen. Budgie started to come down the stairs then and that unstuck us. Chicken starts talking. He was going
You stupid fucking cunt, you stupid fucking cunt
and I thought he was talking to Hughes so I said something like
Well, it’s hardly his fault
but he was talking to Budgie and he started shouting then:
Of course it’s his fucking fault, he shoved him over the banister, he pushed him over the fucking banister
. And then Chicken gets down on his knees and starts listening to Hughes’s mouth and I thought Hughes was speaking to him so I said
What’s he saying? What’s he saying?
but Chicken was trying to hear if he was breathing. Then Budgie was in the hall with us and he pulls Chicken up away from Hughes and says
Let’s go
. Just like that.
Let’s go
.’
Geordie stopped. His face was lit with an unusual emotion. Danny identified it as excitement.
‘And what? And then what?’
‘And then we went.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I reckon he must have been sleeping and came out of the room suddenly. Just appeared on the landing and freaked Budgie out.’
‘But I don’t understand why
we
went back there. Why’d you bring
me
into it? It was nothing to do with me.’
Geordie shrugged again. The gesture angered Danny. Geordie would never square up to things. He would never shoulder responsibility.
‘I don’t know really. I wanted…I wanted to see if he was dead. And I couldn’t get in without someone to help me up to the window…We’d picked a corner house. It weren’t overlooked by anyone else’s so I knew
we’d be safe enough to get back in, and if we were caught…well, I think I thought everyone would believe what you said–that we’d done nothing, that you wanted to use the phone, that you were running away from some boys chasing you, all that.’
Danny lifted the bottle of Bushmills and poured another dose into his glass. He hadn’t killed anyone. None of this had anything to do with him.
‘Jesus Christ…You
should
have told me this.’
‘Aye. Sorry.’
‘I’ve got to go to bed.’ Danny didn’t want to look at him any more. He was a moron, an idiot, a dangerous lunatic who pulled people into vehicles that were moving too fast and had no seat belts or brakes. He was trouble wrapped up in a wink and a pint and a cloud of smoke.
‘Not yet. Wait up a bit. Sure you’ve no work to go to.’
Danny stared at the kitchen window. It was dark and shadowy as a photographic negative. He felt like Geordie had broken into
his
flat. This man wearing his clothes and sitting at his table and drinking his whiskey was an intruder, a liar and a thief. He was a stranger.
‘I didn’t get you to come to the house ’cause I wanted to get you in trouble you know.’
‘No?’ Danny was too tired to do this any more.
‘If I’d met someone else that day I mightn’t have gone back at all…When we were younger you were always the good one, the kid who did everything right…I mind the time you stopped Davy Thom from making me drink that piss in the Top Deck can. Hammy’d already drank it. Do you remember? He said
I knew it was piss because it was warm.
’
Despite himself, Danny smiled.
‘And maybe I wanted to be good too, or something, when I saw
you
…though you’d just smacked some cub in the balls.’
‘Slim.’
‘Aye, Slim, that’s right.
He
was a real fucker.’
‘They’re everywhere.’
‘They are…I
am
sorry about it.’
‘So am I.’
‘Apologies mate…Really.’
They sat in silence. Danny stubbed out his fag and said, ‘You remember his eye? The way it was watching the wall? How fucking scared it looked?’
‘He was all mashed up.’
‘Yeah.’
Silence again. He hadn’t murdered anyone. Danny solemnly topped up Geordie’s drink, lifted his glass and whispered, ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’
They drank and after a pause Geordie said, ‘Would you ever credit that whole thing about Ian? I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘He
was
immensely strong,’ Geordie said respectfully.
‘Immensely?’
‘Yeah, immensely.’ Geordie looked serious and Danny smirked.
‘That’s a funny word. Immensely…How’re your immense wounds?’
‘You laugh but I swear he gave my head a serious smack with the door. You can feel the bump…here.’
He pulled Danny’s fingers across the table and held them just above the hairline on his forehead. How odd
it was to touch his head, the hair baby-soft and thin. There was a protrusion, curved as an egg, as seemingly delicate.
‘Did he break anything in the flat?’
‘Nope. Took all the cash though.’
‘Thank fuck. You’re best out of all that…Budgie Johnson. I can’t believe he killed Hughes.’
‘I’m not sure
he
did, to be honest.
Something
happened. I know that…’ More silence. Then Geordie started again, ‘What do you reckon Ian’s going to spend all that money on?’
‘I dunno. Not on a present for us anyway…Maybe he’s buying a load of something to take back home and sell. Pirated DVDs or smuggled cigarettes.’
‘Or drugs. It might be drugs.’
‘Could be drugs…Do you know where he said he was taking the cash?’
‘Naw. He mentioned…now what
did
he mention? He was staying in Kilburn, or at least he said he was, at some place called…the Gregory, the Lord Gregory. And he said “Anything the IRA can do we can do better” or something. It probably is drugs.’
‘We could try and stop it. Try and dob him in to fuck up his and Budgie’s plans.’
Geordie nodded. Danny was on a high, winched up by Geordie’s revelation and the whiskey. He hadn’t made Geordie break into Hughes’s house. They hadn’t caused Hughes’s death, although Budgie Fucking Johnson had. And he’d been wrong about Ellen. What did it matter what she’d done with whom? And besides, now they’d both fucked Vyse. He would love to see him explain this one to Freeman, Tom Howard and the rest of the Litigation
partners. Ulster Water wasn’t about to be bought and hacked up. He might have saved thousands of jobs. He felt a new looseness in himself, like he was oiled and running properly. He could
change
things. He could
fix
things. He looked at Geordie, who pulled Rizlas and a lump of hash from the cigarette packet and began deftly skinning up, and he was reminded of being in a gang again, a team. He said, ‘You know we should try and see where he is maybe. Follow him. Nothing stupid obviously. But see where he is and then make an anonymous call or something.’