He said, “I was a great admirer of your colleague’s work, Mr Dunford.”
“You knew him well?”
“Oh aye. We had a very special relationship.”
“Yeah?” I said, picking up my pint.
“Mmm. Mutually beneficial it was.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I’m in the fortunate position to be able to occasionally pass on information that comes my way.”
“What kind of information?”
Derek Box put down his pint and stared at me.
“I’m no grass, Mr Dunford.”
“I know.”
“I’m no angel either, but I am a businessman.”
I took a big gob full of beer and then quietly I asked him, “What kind of businessman?”
He smiled. “Motor cars, though I have ambitions towards the building trade, I make no bones about it.”
“What kind of ambitions?”
“Thwarted ones,” laughed Derek Box. “At moment.”
“So how did you and Barry…”
“As I say, I’m no angel and I’ve never pretended otherwise. However, mere are men in this country, in this county, who have a bit too much of the pie for my liking.”
“The construction pie?”
“Aye.”
“So you were giving Barry information about certain people and their activities in the building world?”
“Aye. Barry showed a particular interest in, as you say, the activities of certain gentlemen.”
The waiter returned with three plates of yellow rice and three bowls of deep red sauce. He laid a dish and a plate in front of each of us.
Paul picked up his bowl and upended it over the plate of rice, mixing it all in together.
The waiter said, “Would you like nans, Mr Box?”
“Aye, Sammy. And another round.”
“Very good, Mr Box.”
I took the spoon from my curry bowl and let a small amount slide on to the rice.
“Get stuck in, lad. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”
I took a forkful of curry and rice, felt the fire in my mouth, and drained my pint.
After a minute, I said, “Yeah, that’s all right that is.”
“All right? It’s fucking delicious is what it is,” laughed Box with an open red mouth.
Paul nodded, breaking into a matching curry grin.
I took another forkful of curry and rice, watching the two fat men edging nearer to their plates with every mouthful.
I remembered Derek Box, or at least I remembered the stories people used to tell about Derek Box and his brothers.
I took a mouthful of yellow rice, looking over to the kitchen door for the next pint.
I remembered the stories of the Box Brothers practising their high-speed getaways down Field Lane, how kids would come down and watch them on a Sunday morning, how Derek was always the driver and Raymond and Eric were always the ones jumping in and out of the cars as they sped up and down Church Street.
The waiter returned with another silver tray of beer and three flat nan breads.
I remembered the Box Brothers getting sent down for robbing the Edinburgh Mail Train, how they claimed they’d been fitted up, how Eric had died inside just weeks before their release, how Raymond had moved to Canada or Australia, and how Derek had tried to enlist for Vietnam.
Derek and Paul were ripping their nans apart and wiping their bowls clean.
“Here,” said Derek Box, tossing me half a nan.
Having finished, he smiled, lit a cigar, and edged his chair back from the table. He took a big pull off his cigar, examined the end, exhaled and said, “Were you an admirer of Barry’s work?”
“Mm, yeah.”
“Such a waste.”
“Yeah,” I said, the lights catching the beads of sweat in Derek Box’s fair hairline.
“Seems a pity to let it go unfinished, so much of it unpub lished, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know…”
Paul held out the Ronson for me.
I inhaled deeply and tried to flex the grip of my right hand. It hurt like fuck.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on at the moment, Mr Dunford?”
“The Clare Kemplay murder.”
“Appalling,” sighed Derek Box. “Bloody appalling. There aren’t words. And?”
“That’s about it.”
“Really? Then you’re not continuing your late friend’s crusade?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“I was led to believe you were in receipt of the great man’s files.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’m not a grass, Mr Dunford.”
“I know, I’m not saying you are.”
“I hear things and I know people who hear things.”
I looked down at a forkful of rice lying cold upon my plate. “Who?”
“Do you ever drink in the Strafford Arms?”
“In Wakefield?”
“Aye,” smiled Box.
“No. I can’t say that I do.”
“Well, maybe you should. See, upstairs is a private club, bit like your own Press Club. A place where a businessman such as myself and an officer of the law can get together in a less formal setting. Let our hair down, so to speak.”
I suddenly saw myself on the back seat of my own car, the black upholstery wet with blood, a tall man with a beard driving and humming along to Rod Stewart.
“You all right?” said Derek Box.
I shook my head. “I’m not interested.”
“You will be,” winked Box, his eyes small and lashless, straight from the Deep.
“I don’t think so.”
“Give it to him, Paul.”
Paul reached down under the table and brought out a thin manila envelope, tossing it across the dirty plates and empty pints.
“Open it,” Box dared me.
I picked up the manila envelope and stuck my left hand inside, feeling the familiar sheen of glossy enlargements.
I looked across the white tablecloth at Derek Box and Paul, visions of little girls wearing black and white wings stitched into skin swimming through the lunchtime bitter.
“Take a fucking look.”
I held the envelope down with my grey bandages and slowly removed the photographs with my left. I pushed back the plates and the bowls and laid out the three enlarged black and white photographs.
Two men naked.
Derek Box was grinning, a slash for a smile.
“I hear you’re a bit of a cunt man, Mr Dunford. So I apologise for the vile content of these snaps.”
I moved each picture apart.
Barry James Anderson, sucking the cock and licking the balls of an old man.
