“How long’s it been?” Roster asks as they sit down on low stools either side of a small, round table. “Twenty-five years? Thirty?”
“About that,” Robert replies. “Or a couple of weeks, depending on how you look at it—I see you around now and again, though I don’t come over.” There are two pints of beer on the table, and Robert has put down his brown leather wallet too. “But, yes, over twenty-five years since we last spoke.”
“One or two things have changed since then.”
“So they have.”
Roster wraps a hand around the pint glass. Robert notices a set of knuckles not unlike his own. “I’m working for Don’s daughter now,” Roster tells him. “The youngest.”
“The one he got from the wee Russian?”
“That’s the one.”
“Does she look like her ma or her da?”
“A bit of both. She takes after her dad in temperament.”
“Stubborn?”
“You could say that. Clever. Serious. She can be ruthless like him, but in a different way. Different times, she reckons.” Roster tells Robert about some of the changes Agatha Howard is making to the area.
“Aye, I’ve heard all about that from the lassies. They’re not best pleased.”
“Maybe not, but they can’t win.”
“How’s that?”
“Come on, Rab.”
Robert nods grimly and takes a sip of his beer. Of course they can’t win.
Roster then reinforces the point: “When a terrier’s got his teeth to a rat, there’s no letting go.”
“Aye.”
“And it’d be best for them if they didn’t wriggle around so much.”
“You can’t blame them for wanting to fight it. Some of those girls have been there for years.”
“Can’t blame them, no, but I would tell them to stop it if I were a friend of theirs.”
Roster places a fist on the table, then sticks out the index finger in Robert’s direction and taps it on the wood. Robert gets the point.
“I don’t think they see me as a friend,” he replies quietly.
“They should know you have their best interests in mind.”
“Maybe.” Robert doesn’t want to say anything decisive.
Roster changes the subject, though only in the way a hawk shifts direction after a missed catch to loop back and try again. “You still in that flat in the new tower block?”
“I am, but the tower block hasn’t been new for at least sixty years.”
“I suppose not. It was a nice deal you got there.”
“I earned it, right enough.”
“Did Donald give you the flat outright, or was it just a long lease?”
Robert has never seen himself as a clever man, but even he can tell Roster is reminding him of the debt he owes.
“I think you probably know.”
“Yes, I do. It was a long lease. It would be difficult to get you out but not impossible.”
“To put it bluntly,” says Robert, trying to keep his voice light.
“To put it bluntly,” agrees Roster sharply. Then he sits up on his stool and puts his hand on his knee. “Agatha hopes the police will take care of the walk-ups for her, but I’m not so sure their involvement is a good idea. I’ve been making plans of my own—gathering a few of the old crowd. We just need to take back the building. Rough them up. Scare them off. That’ll take the fight out of them.”
Roster doesn’t stay much longer. He takes Robert’s most recent phone number, and double checks his address. Then he reminds him again of the favor he’s just done for him up at the police station and heads back towards Mayfair.
Robert finishes his pint and decides to go home. He walks back from the Behn full of booze and memories; drunk on both. It’s like that old man, who Robert thought he would never speak to again, has stepped up, taken him by the hand, dragged him to a local graveyard and started digging. He feels as if he’s standing in front of an abyss he’s been running from for twenty-five years, only to discover he’s been running in circles and that here he is, after all this time, standing in front of it again with nowhere else to go.
He passes Des Sables on his way back to the flat. It’s still in business but only just. Nobody is sitting outside even though the evening is mild, as Robert sees it. Inside there looks to be only waiters. Above Des Sables, there are the flats the girls live in. Precious, Candy, and all those. He thinks about going up now and telling them about the conversation he’s just had with Roster, but isn’t sure what good it would do. They know there are folk out to get them and it’s not like Roster told him anything that would help.
Below the restaurant is the Archbishop’s basement. He thinks again of Cheryl. He feels like falling to his knees, taking his head in his hands and staying that way until he turns to stone.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel
“We’re right at the top. And we don’t have a lift, just these stairs. Would you like a hand with your equipment?”
“If you don’t mind.”
The photographer passes Precious a black canvas bag with a long leather strap. Precious hoists it over her shoulder. It is heavier than she expected. Mona picks up the remaining bags and a folded metal tripod and she, Precious and Tabitha begin to climb the stairs.
“I would help too,” Tabitha begins apologetically, “only I’ve got weak ligaments in both shoulders and I’m not allowed to do load bearing. I’m on a waiting list for an operation. Keyhole surgery, but they’ll still knock me out.”
“Right at the top?” Mona asks.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Like the princesses.”
“Which princesses?”
“All of them. They always live at the top of high towers waiting for Prince Charming to come and get them. Like Sleeping Beauty. Wasn’t she in a tower?”
“Forest,” Tabitha corrects her.
“Rapunzel.”
“Was he the dwarf who tricked the lady and wanted her to guess his name, then got caught out by dancing around a fire while shouting it?”
“No.”
The trio get to the top and pause for breath before
