The flat had become a cell and I was as much a prisoner as I’d ever been in Wandsworth, pacing up and down trying to keep my imagination in check. Sometimes drinking yourself into oblivion is the only thing that makes sense. I felt like it but didn’t do it. At any minute my mobile could ring with news. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more and left.
I was in the car when Nina called. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? This is awful.’
‘Sorry, I’m a mess. All over the place. This whole thing is my fault.’
‘Don’t say that. I’m coming over.’
‘No, don’t. I’ll come to you when I’ve checked in with Danny.’
The drive to the King Pot passed in a blur, the thousands of decisions, big and small, needed to navigate the city traffic made without input from me. Harry was serving somebody at the other end of the bar and didn’t notice me come in. Apart from Felix, none of my brother’s guys were around. He acknowledged me with a nod and came over.
‘Sorry about Mandy.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I haven’t forgotten what you did when Danny wanted to put a bullet in my brain. If you need me, I’m here.’
The office was exactly as it had been. He lifted his head and saw the replacement jukebox, the computer on the desk and the photograph of the Queen on the wall. There was one important difference: it was empty.
Danny wasn’t here.
I ran a finger up and down the neck of one of the whisky bottles. Tempting. If Danny had been here, he would’ve insisted and I’d have had a glass in my hand whether I wanted one or not. Nobody ever dared sit in Danny’s chair. Without thinking I dropped into it. An application for a pub licence in a name I didn’t recognise sat on top of the desk. One of Danny’s many business fronts. On paper he’d own very little.
An amber light blinking in and out told me the PC hadn’t been turned off properly. Typical Danny. Technology had never been his thing. I tapped the space bar and went into shock. My brain refused to accept the evidence of my own eyes. What I was seeing was beyond anything I’d expected. I backed away from the screen, a hundred thoughts piercing my mind like poison darts.
I had to get out of there.
The car was driving itself again. Behind the wheel confusion lay like a weight on me. I pulled into the kerb and switched off the ignition. The images on the screen had made me doubt my sanity. It hadn’t felt right from Day One. Like a fool I’d refused to tackle it head-on. Now the scales were lifted, I felt numb and alone.
No one had warned me.
That wasn’t true. Somebody had.
some people have long memories
From a distance, still wearing the same threadbare coat he’d had on when I’d met him the first time, Vincent Finnegan looked like an old tramp in out of the rain. Close up didn’t improve things – he hadn’t had a shave in days, his shirt was creased and frayed. He’d lost weight, making deep hollows of his cheeks. The former hardman was by himself at a table, leaning against the back wall of the bar giving him an early sight of everybody who came in. A lingering trace of the callous enforcer he’d been skulked in the flinty corners of his eyes and there was a humourless half-smile on his lips as he assessed me walking towards him. He swirled the almost-empty pint measure in his hand and the dregs at the bottom, like he’d been waiting for me to arrive and buy him a refill.
I came straight to the point. ‘You know why I’m here.’
He didn’t feign surprise. ‘I can guess.’
Finnegan pushed his nearly empty glass across to me. His timing was off. There were gaps in what I knew only he could plug. He’d get a drink when he’d told me what I needed to know.
I pushed the glass back. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Vincent. You said you and Danny had a falling out. A “misunderstanding”. What about?’
The question wasn’t one he was keen to answer – even for free booze. His attention wandered to the men at the next table playing cards, then around the bar, everywhere but me.
‘Leave it alone, Luke. There’s nothing good down that road.’
‘Got the impression you were thirsty.’
‘Not that thirsty.’
‘You’re afraid of Danny, aren’t you?’
The suggestion brought a mirthless grunt but no denial.
I mocked him. ‘Vincent Finnegan scared. If all those women you used to pull could see you now. I can’t believe it. You and Sean Poland terrified people. Or maybe that was just Sean.’
The Irishman’s circumstances had changed – he still had his pride. Stomping all over it forced the reaction I wanted. Finnegan drew his coat open to reveal the gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. I wasn’t impressed.
‘All that tells me is you live in fear.’
‘No, Luke, I live in expectation. I’m not going out like Poland.’
I’d no idea what he was talking about. He saw my ignorance and a light came into his eyes. He had the upper hand, once upon a time a common occurrence – not these days.
He pointed a nicotine-stained finger at me.
‘Surprised it’s taken a bright guy like you this long to figure it out.’
‘I’m not so bright, Vincent.’
He raised his walking stick and tapped it on his leg.
‘None of us are, mate.’
‘And I haven’t figured anything out.’
He nudged the pint glass at me again. ‘Then, I’d order a double if I was you – you’re going to need it.’
Finnegan watched me make the call. One pint had become three. His spirit was reborn and he sat straight, eager to hear the exchange. When Danny answered I said, ‘Where are you?’
The abruptness fazed him and he faltered. ‘You… all right, little brother?’
I ignored his question and repeated my own. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the house.’
‘The house? Which house?
‘Our old house. We own it, you and me. Own most of the fucking street as a matter of fact. Told you we were into property, didn’t I?’
‘Stay there. I’m coming.’
Bile rose from my gut, burning the lining of my throat, leaving a foul taste in my mouth, and I had to stop the car and be sick before I could drive on. I’d stared in disbelief at Danny’s PC screen and the live camera showing my flat and the couch where Mandy and I had made love. My first reaction was confusion, then embarrassment as I tried to work out what it meant. Danny had anticipated Rollie Anderson would pursue his vendetta and had it put in to protect me. When? I checked the files. The camera footage dated back to a month before I’d been released.
And suddenly, I understood.
On that first day coming out of Wandsworth, I’d been right – I was being watched. It had taken all this time to figure out who was behind it. Now, I’d bet everything I had that if I called my anonymous ‘breather’, a burner would ring in Danny’s pocket.
A picture of Mandy and Amy came to me. Mandy had been terrified of Danny.
With good reason.
Vincent Finnegan’s extraordinary tale, added to what I’d discovered, rocked me to my core. A part of me wanted to dismiss the Irishman as a bitter guy, eaten with resentment, and doubt his story. But that was the old Luke. Me – I believed every word and was ready to kill.
I hadn’t been near this part of South London in more than two decades – not since I was fifteen. Coming here should’ve been nostalgic, poignant even. Today, I was blind to everything except the fury boiling in me. The front door was ajar, a portal to another time, one where I was a kid, my brother could make me laugh, and the future would take care of itself.
The golden past: a place beyond reach. A place that didn’t exist and never had.