Harry said to Billy, 'Can't see any point hanging about this dump, not with the weather turning. No sense being here. I fancy home, going down west, till the storms are blown out.'
'You been in a war, Chief?'
'I'm fine, thank you.'
'I don't wish to interfere, but you don't look all right, Chief.'
'Very fine – never been better.'
'Have you been robbed?'
There was, and Malachy recognized it, genuine concern in her voice. It was an effort for him but he turned to the woman driver, took the change and the ticket that she dropped into the tray. Through the glass that protected her he saw the way she squinted at him.
He grimaced, which hurt his chin. 'I don't have anything to steal.'
'You should get them washed, those cuts.' She engaged the gears. 'Right now, get yourself a seat. On the night bus we go like the wind.'
He clung to the pole, steadied himself as she pulled away from the stop, then lurched for the nearest seat.
He heard her voice behind him: 'Him what done that to you, did he get pain?'
'Not yet.'
She giggled raucously, then accelerated, and Malachy slumped down. The bus raced through empty streets, took him home to the Amersham.
Bruised and bloodied, he felt the first welling of respect for himself, after so long. Like he had climbed a ladder or scaled the terraced wall of the pyramid. He was too tired, too battered, to know how Ricky Capel would 'get pain', but he promised it.
Chapter Ten
He sat on the floor. Round him were the sheets of paper torn off his notepad, and on the sheets were pencil lines, and he did it as he had been taught. The lines on the paper were maps, as he remembered them, of the main road and the junction, the length of Bevin Close and the street behind it where the gardens shared the common fence with those of the cul-de-sac, and of the house, number eight. He searched deep in his memory for exact recall of everything he had seen under the street-lights.
He heard the tap on the wall.
The house had surprised him. He had expected that Lewisham's roads would open – without warning – into a closed suburb of high walls, high gates, with mansions set behind them, the equivalent of the supplier's place in the country. What he had found, its ordinariness, had wrecked his concentration: he had spent too long down the cul- de-sac after going into its mouth. It was clever, having a place so unremarkable, which could only be reached by going into the mouth and down the throat of Bevin Close.
The tap came louder on the wall behind him, and its persistence grew.
That very ordinariness helped him. Over London, over the country, there were three-bedroomed semi- detached homes, all built to a common design. He knew it by heart – as an officer, he had had one. His rank at Chicksands was assigned homes of that status in Alamein Drive – into a hall with a living room off it, then another door opposite the staircase into a dining room, a kitchen at the end of the hall; up the stairs and four doors, to two double bedrooms, a single and a bathroom; a garden at the back. In Alamein Drive, Roz had kept the second double bedroom empty and ready for the once-a-year visit of her parents, and he had used the single bedroom as an office bolt-hole.
When he had been dragged along by the hair and the shoulder of his overcoat, in Bevin Close, he had seen a woman at the window of number eight – she had hung on to a child, as if to prevent him coming out and joining in the beating and kicking.
The tapping was firmer, more demanding.
The man from next door had shouted, 'Don't be a bloody fool, Ricky.' He had been called 'Dad'. At the cost of a cut lip, welts on his face and a knee in the testicles, Malachy reckoned he had learned much. Fair exchange. He knew the design of the house, knew that family lived alongside it, knew that the entrance to the close was watched. He tidied the pages of his maps.
He locked the door behind him and stood for a moment on the walkway, then heard the distorted sound of the tapping, and rang the bell beside the grille gate.
Malachy followed Millie Johnson into her flat. She walked unsteadily ahead of him, leaning hard on the medical stick, but she waved him away when he went to take her arm. She was smaller than when he had last seen her, smaller than she had been in the hospital bed when she'd had the fierce bruising and the tubes in her. She sat in her chair and her small eyes pierced him. She was pale, frail, and the arm in which the pin had been put was held in a sling. Would she like tea?
Yes, she would. Did she have biscuits? She did: Dawn had shopped for her. He went into the kitchen, boiled the kettle, made the tea and did a tray of cups and saucers, milk, sugar and a plate of digestives. The woman had changed his life. He paused, in the kitchen, with the tray. The widow of the bus driver had changed his life, utterly, by going alone to an evening of bingo for pensioners. Without her…
'Hurry up. I can't abide stewed tea. It needs to be fresh out of the pot.'
'Of course, Millie.'
He carried the tray to her. She watched, hawk-eyed, as he dripped in the milk, put a spoon and a half of sugar in her cup, and poured the tea. He'd get no praise for his care. He laid a biscuit on her saucer – and waited. She sipped the tea, nibbled the biscuit and irritably brushed crumbs from her lap. He broke the quiet: 'You're looking well, Millie. Very good.'
She challenged, her gaze beading at him: 'What have you been doing with yourself?'
'Not much.'
She mimicked him, 'Oh, 'not much'. What's with your face?'
'Walked into a lamp post.'
'Try again.'
'Must have been dreaming, didn't see the door.'
'Do better.'
'Tripped on a paving-stone, fell in the gutter.'
'Is that the best you can do?'
'Something like that.'
'You think Dawn doesn't talk to me? Dawn talks.
Who did it?'
'Did what, Millie?'
He saw the shrewdness of the old eyes. If he shifted in the chair, they followed him. If he ducked his head, they lifted. If he threw it back, they were with him. They were aged, but the eyes were keen.
'Bless you, for what you've done.'
'Millie, I've done nothing.'
Still the eyes tracked him. 'You lie there in the bed, in the hospital. People come, you don't want them.
They fuss over you. All you do is hope they will go and leave you. When they've left you, then you can hate. I'm not good with words, Malachy… You hate because of what was done to you, but you are helpless
… You see them. They have contempt for you because you are old. You cannot fight them. You hold on to the bag, all that is left for you. You cannot stand. You are down. There is nothing in your purse but they have your bag. You hate them, and those who sent them. A priest came to me, a simpering fool. What did I feel? I told him I felt hate. I had his lecture: 'We are all God's children, my dear. Hate belittles us. We must learn to forgive.' Couldn't wait to see the back of him. I hated them. What I wanted, in that bed, seeing their faces, was that they be hurt…'
'You shouldn't talk because it will tire you.'
'Rubbish. Dawn told me what's happened on the Amersham. It made me laugh. I did not say it to Dawn, but
