The Make

front door, glad of someone else’s presence, anyone’s, because she didn’t know what to say to ease Suze’s pain.

It was Claude, coming in red-nosed from the pub, bringing in a waft of icy winter air with him. He came into the kitchen and looked at Suze, sitting there in floods.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Oh Claude, it was horrible,’ said Suze, and sprang up and flung herself into Claude’s arms.

Claude looked a question at Gracie. ‘George’s heart stopped,’ she explained. ‘They restarted it. He’s okay.’

For now, anyway.

Gracie threw back the brandy. It warmed her all the way down to her toes. She stood up. Hated this feeling of being powerless, swept along like a reed on a current of water. She was used to being in charge, in control. Owning her surroundings. But all this was so strange to her. She didn’t like it. Not at all. It didn’t suit her, and she wasn’t about to accept it.

‘I think I’ll go on up,’ she said, easing her way past her mother and her boyfriend.

She went wearily up the stairs to her room, feeling exhausted. She went to the window and looked out at the dark street. There were little wisps of snow drifting down, but it was too thin and it was still too warm for snow to settle.

Christmas was coming and here was a perfect winter’s scene to go with it. But George was lying half dead in intensive care. And Harry . . . well, where the fuck was Harry? She thought of the matching bags of hair and felt her guts twist with anxiety. And the notes. The bloody notes. Maybe they should get the police involved. But Harry. She had to think of Harry. If somebody saw them talking to the police, where would that leave him? Up shit creek.

There was a cough behind her.

She turned.

‘Settling in?’ asked Claude, smiling at her from the open doorway. She hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs.

‘Yeah. Fine,’ said Gracie.

‘If there’s anything you need, anything at all,’ he said, addressing his comments to the front of her shirt.

‘There ain’t,’ she said coldly, and walked over and shut the door in his face.

Creep, she thought, then dismissed him from her mind. She had come down here to find answers. And she was going to bloody well do that, starting first thing tomorrow.

Chapter 20

22 December

By ten next morning, Gracie was slipping one of Suze’s spare keys into the outer door of the building where George and Harry rented their flat. The building was a soulless, Thirties block of ten flats, set on a busy main road. Outside there was no greenery, no ornamentation, nothing to suggest homeliness. Stepping inside, Gracie looked round at a bare concrete hall, a utilitarian staircase. The grey-painted doors to flat 1 and 1A were on her left. The air in here smelled of cooked cabbage and curry.

‘George and Harry live on the first floor,’ Suze had told her at breakfast. ‘Flat number two. I don’t know what you think you’ll gain from going there, but here’s the keys if you really want them. And you can fetch a clean pair of George’s pyjamas and a dressing gown for him if you don’t mind.’

Suze had handed over a bunch of four keys – two for the outer door to the block, two for the flat door. Gracie didn’t know what she was going to gain, either. She just knew she had to start somewhere, and their flat seemed like the best place to begin. She went up the stairs. There was no one about. Flats 2 and 2A were to her left. The same, putty-coloured paint on the door. Spyholes on both, just like on the flats downstairs. She brandished another key and slipped it into the keyhole.

The door swung open. It was dark inside the flat, the curtains drawn. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. It smelled stale, too. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then smoothed her hand down the wall beside the door and found the light switch, knocking a phone off its hook, and swearing. She flicked the light on and pocketed the keys.

George and Harry’s flat was revealed to her. The phone on the floor was an entry phone, attached by its flexible wire to a small intercom. She replaced it, then looked around her. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz. There was a dirty-looking beige carpet on the floor, and the curtains were dark blue. It was warm in here, the boiler obviously set by a timer to automatically switch on. She picked up a few envelopes from the doormat and went over to the curtains and yanked them back. Dust plumed.

Two young men living on their own. Well, did I expect it to be neat and tidy?

There was an old-looking telly with a digibox. Several dusty-looking, blue-shaded lamps. An open bed-settee, with a rumpled quilt and pillows laid out on it. Lots of clutter. Some dead roses in a vase of stinking water. Guitars and bongo drums and clothes all over the place. She remembered George and his clutter. George was a magpie. Hated to throw anything away. Harry was tidier, she remembered that, but he wasn’t going to win any domestic prizes.

There was a small kitchen to one side of the living room, and that was in disarray too. Unwashed cups in the sink. Pans left to dry out on the sink top. There were garments behind the glass door of the washing machine. Gracie walked along the small hallway where there was a bathroom – tiny – and two bedrooms, both beds unmade. A computer desk and chair were in the corner of the larger one, with an empty, scummy mug with GEORGE on the side, a PC, monitor and printer set up on the desk.

She went over to the dressing table and opened a couple of drawers. In the bottom one she found a pair of what looked like unused pyjamas and she stuffed them into her bag. She grabbed the dressing gown hung on the back of the door, rolled it up and stuffed that in there too.

Gracie moved back into the living room and flicked off the light. The weak yellowish sun shone in the dirty windows and highlighted all the dust and disorder in here.

Well, what now, Gracie Doyle?

If . . . no, when George came out of hospital, he wouldn’t want to come back to a tip like this. She was going to have to have a word with Suze; they were going to have to get this place shipshape. That much, she could do. Organize a cleaner or something.

So what else are you hoping to find here?

‘I don’t know,’ she said aloud, and she wandered over to the telly, looking at the pads of paper and pens and scrawled notes set out on a low table beside it.

She unbuttoned her coat, sat down and started picking up bits of paper.

Get milk and bread, said one.

Phone Tone!, said another.

Mr Cuthill, followed by a phone number.

Gracie picked up the phone and dialled. It was answered straight away.

‘Hello? Mr Cuthill?’ asked Gracie.

‘Who’s this?’ He didn’t sound particularly friendly.

‘I’m Gracie Doyle, George and Harry’s sister. I’m just tidying up their flat,’ she lied smoothly. ‘And I came across your number, and—’

‘They missed last month’s rent. I told them. Payment on the dot, I told them that when they moved in or they’d be out the door. I warned them.’

Ah. Mr Cuthill is the landlord. And what a charmer, too.

‘They ain’t been answering the fucking phone,’ he said, sounding aggrieved.

‘George has been in hospital, and Harry’s away.’

‘That ain’t my problem. When do I get my rent?’

Gracie took up a pen. ‘Tell me what’s due and give me your address, I’ll sort that out for you straight away.’