The Make

times these past few weeks. Walking around the city at night with that tart Mona, and then there had been something with a taxi guy, some disagreement, something . . . he couldn’t quite remember what . . . but he knew there’d been trouble. But he’d persevered, his old mum told him you should always persevere, and he had. He’d been so worried about his mum, after what Deano had said. All the time, he’d been getting more and more anxious, taking heavier hits of the can; sometimes he could barely even think, he was so spaced out and so freaked out by this whole situation.

And now Gordon had found the boy, and wanted paying?

All right.

Lefty took a grip of himself. What he felt was a killing rage. He wanted to take Gordon’s smug head and batter it against the corner of that kitchen cabinet, see the blood fly, let rip; but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t afford to. He owed Gordon, the fat fuck was right; and he needed that information.

‘How much?’ asked Lefty.

‘For this sort of info? Couple of ton ought to do it.’

‘You got it,’ said Lefty. Couple of ton? ‘Now come on. Spill.’

‘Cash first,’ said Gordon.

‘Don’t get paid ’til tomorrow.’

‘Can I trust you, Lefty?’ Gordon was looking at his ex-friend speculatively.

‘Man, we’re brothers, we’re pals. I wouldn’t cross a pal, Gordy. Never.’

My arse, thought Gordon. Lying little git would cross his own grandma for a fix. But he knew where Lefty lived. And if Lefty defaulted, he was going to come down on the fucker like a sack of shit.

‘Right then,’ said Gordon. ‘We’re agreed.’

‘Right, man. Right.’

Now Lefty was looking at him hopefully. ‘Come on, man,’ he whined.

So Gordon told him where he had seen Alfie.

Lefty grinned happily. All would be well. Then he had a thought: ‘You don’t tell Deano about this, okay? You got me? That’s my shit, man. My good news. Understood?’

Gordon nodded. He didn’t want to get involved with it in any way, shape or form; he was a doorman, and that was all. Fuck Deano and his young boys.

‘Understood,’ he said.

Chapter 47

Alfie was as happy as a pig in shit. He was loving the job, he was living with George and Harry; everything that had been so awful and so frightening about his world had somehow resolved itself into this arrangement that worked so well for all of them.

Well, he hoped that was the case.

He knew he had freaked George a little with the cuddles and kisses, but he couldn’t help that, he really couldn’t because he loved George, he adored him, and he had been stifling an impulse to get closer ever since he’d met him. It had been killing him having to suppress how he truly felt.

Now, George knew.

And at first – granted – George had been shocked.

That had hurt Alfie so much.

But now, George had mellowed. He had never mentioned that night again, but he was acting normally around Alfie, laughing, joking, having breakfast down the caff, still dating the women and – Alfie supposed, and felt a bit unhappy about it – still shagging them too, and taking their money for it. Harry had even suggested that Alfie go on the pay roll when he hit his eighteenth birthday. Well, why not? Harry said he was a good-looking boy; there was mega money to be earned. Why slog his guts out down the casino when the escorting biz paid so much better?

It had been George who had clamped down on that idea. And that had pleased Alfie immensely, because it gave him just a little hope that George might love him too, and might not want him getting involved with women. Whatever, Alfie knew that he could never get it up for a woman, anyway. He knew that horrible nonce Deano and his lapdog Lefty had spotted that in him early on. It made him shudder to think about it – all that had been done to him and how it could have ended.

It hurt Alfie that George could actually go with women. Maybe George was bi- and just didn’t know it yet. Certainly he had responded when Alfie had fondled him, kissed him. Or maybe he really was gay and was trying very, very hard not to face it, not to come out. Alfie hoped it was that. Because if it was, then one day George could be his and his alone.

One day.

Alfie dreamed of that.

And while Alfie dreamed, and Lefty Umbabwe was hearing about Alfie’s whereabouts from his ex-friend Gordon, the tides near the bridge rose and fell. Lefty hadn’t considered tidal movements or heights when he’d pushed the cab containing its dead driver into the river. He hadn’t considered squat. He’d been too jazzed for that.

But him and Mona had pushed it in at high tide, into water that was seven metres deep. Now, the tide was low, barely a metre of water there. The movements of the water and the traffic on the river had jolted and bumped the car along the muddy bottom and now it was lying on its roof just under London Bridge.

Someone was bound to see it there.

And eventually – of course – someone did.

Sally Paige was hurrying among the hordes of commuters, office workers just like herself, over the bridge. It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, and she was trying not to breathe in, because the river was low. It looked like a narrow oily grey slug down there, and where the mud of the river bottom was exposed there were trolleys, bikes, flotsam and jetsam. The mud stank to high heaven and she hated that smell.

Sally hated a lot about her world. She hated her go-nowhere job, and the bossy cow who sat opposite her in the accounts department of Turbell and Whey, a small and extremely dull engineering firm; and most of all she hated her husband, who bored her witless. She’d been married to Simon for twelve years and the habits that had once endeared her to him now made her want to shriek with rage. The sniffing – why wouldn’t he use a handkerchief like any normal person? The bum-scratching. The insistence on a brisk morning hump, despite Sally’s often-stated preference for evenings. She hated morning humps. It was nearly Christmas, and Christmas was always crunch time for Sally. Every year she said to herself: this is it; this year I’m going to do it. I’m going to leave him.

Every year, she stayed.

But this year . . .

She came to a halt. People stepped around her, glaring, but she walked over to the edge of the bridge and looked down at the river, thinking of that fountain in Rome, what was it called, yeah, that was it, the Trevi Fountain, where you threw in a coin and made a wish. Her breath pluming out in front of her in the cold, dank, tainted air, she ignored the roaring traffic and the steady flow of pedestrians and thought to herself: This time I’m going to do it.

She looked down at the grey oozing river, and a glint of metal caught her eye. Some junk or other down there. Yeah, she’d leave him, make a fresh start in a bright, hopeful New Year. Maybe even get another job. She felt her heart lift at the very idea of it. That glint again.

She craned over the parapet a little, curious. The smell rose up to her, making her gag. Mud and water. But there was definitely something down there, just under the bridge. Round things, like car tyres. And oh yes, the big, boxy rectangular shape of a car, but . . . yes, it was upside-down. Somebody must have just dumped it in there. She could see the windows on one side, dulled by silt and weed, but something . . . something was lolling against the window, something that looked like . . .