to blame someone else for it.
Money had been becoming more and more of an issue recently. The missus’s sister was married to an insurance broker in the city called Clive who liked to flash the cash, and it was making the missus jealous. They also had a kid a couple of months older than Luke, a real ugly bruiser called Harry who had a flat, bashed-in face that looked like it had been used as a hammer by Mike Tyson, but who was always dressed up in the latest designer clothes. Clive, the missus’s sister and young Frankenstein were off to a villa in the south of France for three weeks in August, and had invited the Jenner family along. The missus wanted to go but Stegs wasn’t keen on the idea. He’d said it was because they couldn’t afford it, but in reality it was much more to do with the fact that he couldn’t stick Clive, who was about as full of life as the Unknown Soldier. But since then the missus had got it into her head that Stegs was going to have to change jobs in order to solve their financial woes and put them in a position where they could go on fancy holidays and dress Luke up in the manner he deserved. Not that the little bugger appeared too bothered about his sartorial elegance as he sat there drooling lumpy porridge all over his romper suit.
Stegs decided to use the nuclear option and nip this broadside in the bud by telling her that Vokes had been the officer killed yesterday, and that he himself had been present only minutes before it had happened. It had the desired effect. Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes widened. ‘Oh God, Mark. It could have been you. Are you all right, baby?’ She grabbed him in an intense hug, crumpling the Visa bill against his dressing gown, and causing a burst of jealous displeasure from Luke who started screaming and spraying bits of porridge everywhere. The missus was not a big woman — in fact, her mother thought she was too thin (mind you, the mother was pushing fifteen stone) — but on that morning she had a grip of steel, and Stegs felt himself losing breath.
‘It’s all right, love,’ he gasped. ‘I’m fine. It’s going to be OK.’ Not if you don’t fucking let go of me, it won’t.
She sobbed silently into his shoulder, unlike Luke who sobbed loudly into his ear, occasionally hitting it with pieces of half-eaten shrapnel. Stegs felt bad that he’d broken it to her like he had, and not for the first time he cursed himself for being so thoughtless. She didn’t have the most comfortable of lives at the moment and he ought to go a bit easier on her.
She pulled away from him and turned her attention instead to Luke. ‘It’s all right, Lukey, Lukey, Lukey. It’s OK, babe. Mama’s here now.’ Like a wild animal who’d met his match, Luke calmed down and his screams became the occasional hiccoughing sob. The missus took the porridge spoon from Stegs and began refilling her son’s face. He gave Stegs a nasty look out of the corner of his eye, as if to say, ‘Watch it, she’s mine.’ Stegs, to his shame, gave him one in return. That kid was going to have to learn a bit of respect.
The missus turned to him, still feeding Luke. She’d recovered now, but there were still tears in her eyes. She’d only met Vokes twice — once when they’d gone round there for dinner, and another time for a meal in the West End (neither occasion had been very successful, in part due to Gill’s rampant Christianity, which meant you had to be careful what you said) — but she was aware that Stegs had worked with him for a while, and that they were close. ‘Have you spoken to Gill?’ she asked.
‘Not yet. I will do, though.’
‘Poor thing. It’s going to be awful for her.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Imagine losing your husband like that. And with kids as well. You’re going to go round and see her, aren’t you?’
He didn’t feel any better about doing it than he had the previous night, but he knew he didn’t really have much choice. ‘I’ll go and see her later today. She’ll probably have her family and the police round this morning.’
‘It’s just so. . so awful, Mark. What happened?’
Stegs didn’t like talking about his job with the missus. He never had. To be fair, she’d never been that interested, and on those occasions when she had asked, he’d always cited security reasons for not saying too much. This time, though, he knew he wasn’t going to get away without at least telling her something, not least because she was going to be able to get most of the details from the news and the papers, so he gave her as brief a rundown as possible of what had happened, making no mention of his suspension. In his story, he’d been at the scene in one of the other rooms, but at no time had he been in any danger. Vokes had been the one taking the risks (Stegs explained that he didn’t get directly involved in the more dangerous situations, describing his responsibility as back-up, which she seemed to buy) and, unfortunately, things had gone wrong. ‘He was just unlucky, you know. It’s very, very rare that these jobs go tits-up.’
‘Don’t swear in front of Lukey, Mark.’
‘Why not? He can’t understand what I’m saying.’
‘It’s just not nice, OK? Please.’
Stegs took a slurp from his cup of tea. It was going cold. ‘Yeah, whatever.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I’m fine. Tired, that’s all.’ And hung over, he thought. He’d sunk four in the Admiral, then two cans of Stella when he’d got home. He was amazed he hadn’t been up pissing all night, but then he’d always had a strong bladder.
The missus sighed and gave him her trademark calm-but-serious look. This was always a sign that she was going to nag him about something. And he knew straight away what it was. ‘I want you to think very seriously about changing jobs, Mark. Really. Linda was saying the other day that Clive could get you a job as head of office security at Warner Tomkins and Nash Associates. The current incumbent’s not doing a very good job and they want to make him redundant and replace him.’
Stegs thought that his missus was probably the only person he knew who actually used the word ‘incumbent’ in conversation. ‘Look, can we not talk about this now? It’s a bad time at the moment.’
‘When can we talk about it, then?’
‘Not today,’ he said, getting up from the kitchen chair and looking around for his cigarettes. ‘Please not today.’
‘The pay’s good,’ she called after him as he found the pack and retreated out the back door and into the cold for his first smoke of the day.
He locked himself in his study with the PC for most of the morning, explaining to the missus that he was doing some work from home. Instead he made a valiant effort to get
But even the most hardy of scribes needs a rest, so at 11.30 Stegs emerged from the cramped little room which was the only one in the house he could truly call his own (no-one else could fit in it while he was in there) and told his missus that he had to go to a debriefing session at Scotland Yard.
‘Are you sure you’re OK to go?’ she asked him. ‘Maybe it’d be better if you stayed here for the afternoon. They really ought to give you a couple of days off after something as traumatic as what’s happened.’
‘I’ve got a duty to the people who need me,’ he told her piously. ‘And I’m fine, honestly.’
‘Are you going to call in on Gill and the kids?’
He nodded. ‘Afterwards.’
‘Give them my love. And my condolences. Maybe you should pick up some flowers on the way.’
‘Course I will.’ He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then picked up Luke who was playing at her feet. The boy gave him a hostile look at first, then slowly his face broke into a smile. Stegs smiled back, suddenly feeling all soppy. ‘Hey, my little man, I’m going to miss you today. Kiss for Dada, eh?’
As he leant forward to give him a big slobbery one on the lips, he was suddenly assailed by a ferocious smell, so powerful that it could probably have stripped paint off walls. He swallowed hard, trying not to gag. An old man couldn’t have produced worse. No wonder the little bugger had been smiling. That one must have been brewing up for hours.
Swiftly he handed him back to the missus, having given him only a cursory lip-scrape across the cheek. ‘I think he needs changing, babes. I’d love to stop and help but the meeting starts in an hour. I’ve got to run.’
