Terry could feel a cold wind coming. Charlie had always laughed at Terry’s sensitivity to atmosphere – because Charlie had been dead from the neck up, as far as any finer feelings were concerned. Terry was the one who sometimes sensed danger before it hit, and Charlie had been glad to have him around.
Now, with Charlie gone, it was like a part of Terry himself was missing. Guilt chewed at his guts day and night. He should have been with Charlie that day. What Harlan had said when that Jet Ranger crashed was absolutely right. It was his job in life to look after Charlie, to be his right hand, and he had failed. Feeling sick at heart, still he did the rounds as usual, checked out the dealers, visited the crack production lines and so far – so far – Harlan had left him alone to get on with it all, while making it perfectly clear that Terry answered to him now.
For the first time since he’d been a small boy forced to go to Sunday school by his mum, he went to the church on the manor, the one where he’d married Jill and where Charlie had married Nula, back in their old glory days. Somehow he needed to do this. He walked up the aisle, absorbing the peace of the vast place, his eyes fixed on the suffering Christ in the stained-glass windows behind the altar. Wondering why the hell he did it, he crossed himself and then slid into a pew and sat there, head bowed.
He thought of Charlie, dead, burned to ashes. His old friend. His mad, impulsive friend who’d been such a great laugh, such a ruddy fool, such a mate. As he remembered the helicopter crashing, his face screwed up in anguish. He should have stopped that happening somehow. Somehow. He’d lost his best friend in the whole world, but before that there had been other losses; too many. Little Col in that botched burglary. And Beezer, funny stupid Beezer in his poncy designer gear, who’d always made them laugh down the pub. Terry closed his eyes and tried to pray, but no words would come into his mind, nothing would come except his firm belief that this was an evil trade they were all involved in, and they were all damned to hell. God had punished Charlie and Nula for it and eventually God would punish him and his family for it, too.
God no. Please spare them. Spare Belle. Spare my wife. Take me. I know I’ve been bad. Just take me and be done with it.
‘My son?’
He looked up. A priest he didn’t know was standing there in a white dog collar and black cassock. Back in the day, the preacher here had been all hellfire and brimstone, but this one was new. Bulky and bald and with myopic blue eyes, there was a smile on his thin lips.
‘Are you all right?’ asked the priest.
‘I’m fine. Thank you, Father.’
‘If you need to talk . . .’ he started.
Terry started to shake his head. Then he said: ‘Would you hear my confession, Father?’
‘Of course,’ said the priest.
Then Terry thought of what he could say, what he dared say to this God-fearing man. ‘No. Maybe I won’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
The priest stood there looking down at Terry with gentle eyes. ‘It’s never too late to find God,’ he said.
Terry felt a tightness in his throat and for a moment he was afraid that he might actually start to cry.
‘Maybe He wouldn’t want to find me,’ he managed to say.
The priest smiled. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. God’s love is for everyone,’ he said, and walked on, up the aisle to the altar.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Jill over the phone later that same day.
She was at the gatehouse, and Terry was still up in town meeting a few of the lads, just checking things were running smooth. They weren’t, of course. The trusted old guard were complaining about Harlan’s up-and-coming young bucks, kids with bum fluff on their faces and big attitudes, trying to tell them how to behave. Terry smoothed things over as best he could, but truthfully he felt the same as any of them. Dispossessed. Shoved aside. He didn’t tell Jill about his visit to the church. He couldn’t.
‘Where’s Belle?’ asked Terry.
‘She’s right here. Up at the big house in the outside pool, swimming. You OK?’
‘I’m fine.’ It was a lie, but still. He couldn’t let Jill know that he felt shaky all of a sudden, unsure of the ground beneath his feet, fearful for the future. He was always the strong one, the one who looked after everyone else. He couldn’t be seen to be weak, not ever.
‘I’ll call back later today. And tonight I’ll be home, right?’ he said.
‘Right.’
‘I love you.’
There was a surprised silence. He never said that. Never. It was understood between them; never spoken out loud. ‘I love you too,’ she said softly, but he didn’t hear it.
He’d already hung up.