the prints on her lap. Every now and again she’d unconsciously pass the flat of her hand over them.
‘Pull over and wait here for me,’ she said at length.
As she left the prints on the seat and got out he wound the window down. ‘You sure this is the place, miss? I mean, it’s not the kind of place you ought to be out alone, if you get my meaning.’
‘I’ll be no more than fifteen minutes. Please wait for me.’
The street was deserted, the buildings dark and close together, looming over her, the sound of her footsteps hollow and incongruous in the still night. In the background was the ever-constant drone of traffic.
She saw a man separate from the shadows of a wall and head towards her. ‘Do you have them?’ she asked.
‘The money?’
She nodded, holding out her hand. He studied her through narrow, distrustful eyes. He gave her a brown envelope. She rifled through the documents inside.
‘High quality, as ever…’ he said.
‘They should be. It cost me enough,’ she observed. She appeared satisfied. Handed him a thick wad of cash. ‘It’s all there,’ she said flatly.
‘I trust you.’ He slipped the money into his pocket. ‘Always a pleasure.’ She didn’t answer. She turned on her heel and left him. ‘Till the next time,’ he called after her.
There will be no next time, she thought. At least, not with you.
She got back to the taxi and the driver seemed relieved to see her. ‘Take me to Camden tube station,’ she said. When eventually they arrived there she got out and leaned towards his window. ‘There’s three hundred pounds,’ she said. ‘You never saw me tonight and you never drove me to Camden.’
‘Fine by me,’ he said, taking the money. ‘Never set eyes on you.’
She headed through the turnstiles and took the escalator down to the tube.
The evening was drawing to a natural close. Clive Foster was wearing his Cheshire Cat grin, which meant the exhibition had gone well. He went over to Gareth to congratulate him and discuss business.
‘By the way,’ he said, waving goodbye to a young couple leaving the gallery, ‘the woman of whom I spoke about earlier — the pretty one…’
‘They’re all pretty to you, Clive,’ Gareth observed wryly.
He thought about that and nodded. ‘Anyway, it was your sister.’
Gareth frowned and then laughed hollowly. ‘I don’t think so, Clive.’
‘That’s what she said to me. She said to tell you your sister has been here. What is it, are you two not on speaking terms or something?’
‘Clive, I don’t know who she was, or why she should say that. She was pulling your leg. I don’t have a sister. I never have.’
‘That’s rather bizarre, then,’ said Clive. ‘I know now why I thought I’d seen her somewhere before — she bore a distinct likeness to you.’
10
Billy Crudd had big plans. So many plans his head was fit to burst with them all, like they were bored and angry teenagers confined within the constraints of a stuffy classroom, staring out of the windows, craving freedom and causing trouble purely because it broke the grinding monotony. Lots of fists pounding on the glass of his skull, things demanding to be let out. They taunted him in bed as he lay awake at night, and all but screamed at him as he stuffed yet another tin of baked beans into the ever-hungry maw of a dull stretch of supermarket shelving. Plans. Plans designed to hoist him out of this drudgery, to scoop him out of the shit that was his miserable life.
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, swept away the mist on the mirror with the palm of his hand, but it crept back like grey fungus and his reflection remained blurred. Not that he particularly wanted to see himself in the mirror. He knew he was not blessed with good looks. His hair, at only twenty-eight years of age, was already as patchy as a lawn in a drought, and he blamed his fucking dad for that; in fact he blamed both his parents for ever bringing together their woeful combination of genes and passing the obnoxious concoction on to him. From his mother, oily, spotty skin, overly large, uneven teeth, a chin that was a little bit too long; from his dad that sorry thatch on his head, a pigeon chest and thin frame on which muscle refused to accumulate in spite of his many, if sporadic and failed, attempts with weights and muscle-bulking drinks.
He brushed his teeth. A quick ten seconds because what was the point? They weren’t up to much anyway and were more fillings than enamel. He glanced at his watch. He had to get a move on if he wasn’t to be late again. He’d already been called into Slimer’s office — Slimer being the supermarket manager — and warned with some ferocity about being five minutes late again. Five fucking minutes! Damn that clocking-in machine. It used to be fine until they cracked down on workmates clocking in for you if you couldn’t quite make it in time. And the last thing he wanted to be told was that there were plenty of people on the dole who would gladly do his job if he didn’t want it. ‘Christ, Billy, you only live five fucking minutes away!’ Slimer had growled. ‘There isn’t even half an excuse you could give me!’
Well, thought Billy Crudd, they could have their fucking job. It wouldn’t be long before he would be able to tell Slimer he could stuff his job where the sun doesn’t shine. He smiled at the thought, playing the scene in his head like he was the hero in his own movie, standing there and telling the jumped-up gobshite all the hateful things he’d stored up, the same way he’d stacked those crummy shelves with crummy foreign food year after stinking year, and laughing at his manager’s terrified, beaten face as he spun haughtily on his heel and strode proudly out of his poky little office.
Yeah, Billy Crudd had plans. Just needed the money and his scheme would take off and fly, taking him with it.
Money, unfortunately, was the only sticking point. What he needed he just couldn’t earn at Speedy Save supermarket, not on minimum wage. Neither could he afford to escape living with his parents and rent a place of his own. He could hardly save the deposit needed for a flat, let alone pay the hugely inflated monthly rents they were asking these days. Since the housing crash, with people unable to get mortgages, the rental market had gone ballistic and landlords had been quick to sniff profits and raise their rates. People were paying small fortunes for stinking dives that nobody wanted a few years ago. So he was stuck with them for now; stuck with his parents and stuck with the name Billy Crudd.
His real name was William Krodde, his Dutch grandfather coming over to England after the war. No one at school could be bothered to pronounce it properly, so they called him Crudd or Cruddie, a nickname that stuck. Anyhow, it suited him that no one thought he was part foreign. He hated all those fucking foreigners coming over and taking all the English jobs, scrounging off benefits and sapping the National Health system. He conveniently ignored the fact that his own father hadn’t worked in ten years and knew the system well enough to claim a raft of state benefits. He played up his inability to get about, yet Billy had seen him active enough to know that was a lie. But so what? The system was fucked-up anyhow, and the government didn’t give a toss about you. You have to take care of yourself, son, he’d told him in a rare moment of paternal advice giving, and if that meant at the expense of someone else then that suited Billy Crudd too.
It was 9.30pm before he put on his works uniform — white shirt, black trousers, black shoes — and stuffed the horrible lime green coat he was forced to wear into a Speedy Save carrier bag. His dad was stretched out on the sofa; the news on the TV was playing to itself. Fresh rioting had broken out in London. Good for them, he thought. The fucking government, driving everyone deeper into poverty with their bastard austerity measures, deserved to get a stiff kick in the ministerial balls. If he were there in London he’d be joining in too, helping himself to a new TV. He could do with another TV.
‘I’m off,’ he said, but his lardy lump of a father didn’t hear; he was asleep, his rounded belly rising and falling
