Frank replaced the kicked-over sign and looked for something else to hit, imagined burying his fist into something softer and fleshier than metal. Such as a mouth, or a sweet, yielding stomach. He drew in his paunch and stood upright.
By his own reckoning, his sister’s estate was worth over a million quid; less if the insurance policies were fucked up by suicide clauses, but Thomas would fix all that. It was still a fortune; it was freedom; it was his right. He wanted that money so badly, he would happily have liberated the biggest car in the room and run over anyone who got in the way, reversing over the corpse to make absolutely sure. More than halfway there. He stood in a reverie of anticipated happiness.
A man was knocking on the plate glass door of the showroom. It was too early for serious customers, so Frank ignored him. Waste of time to be here at eight thirty, but the manager said someone had to, just in case, as though anyone who could afford this merchandise ever got out of bed before noon, unless it was some city slicker ready to spend the obscene annual bonus on the way to work. Those buggers never slept. The knocking continued, scarcely loud enough to be heard in the silence of the showroom. The glass doors were armour plated; all the glossy stock and its salesman were well imprisoned.
Outside, there was Berkeley Square, famous for plane trees and a song that insisted that nightingales sang there. Frank never noticed either the trees or the birds, not even the pigeons, but it was the West End, adjacent to Bond Street, an excellent address and to say that you worked there did no harm when it came to chatting up women. Frank’s never unfashionable Mayfair taunted him with money. Half the people he passed in the street round here would think that a million quid was loose change, while the other fifty per cent were like himself and knew it was a fortune in freedom. He could taste it in his mouth, like blood after a punch, and he curled the fingers of his fist.
You’re a fucking loser, aren’t you, Frank, and there’s nothing more savage than that, is there?
He unlocked the glass door, taking his time about it and looking officious for the benefit of the man outside, not making eye contact as he did the unbolting, first at the top, then at the bottom and only enough to release one of the doors. A sideways glance en route, taking in the frame of the person on the other side of the glass was enough to convince him this was not sales material. It was the coat that did it. Even Frank knew that no one wore an overcoat like that any more unless it was second-hand.
This was a young man, younger than Frank, anyway, sporting the sort of out-of-date coat which might lend another man authority, shivering all the same. Frank’s instinct was to say, ‘We’re closed’, but he somehow warmed to the pretensions of that coat, swung back the door and ushered him in. Killing a little time with a bloke who would never buy one of these cars beat the shit out of polishing them. Buffing up bodywork was surely woman’s work. Talking was what Frank did best and he wanted company. Wanted to behave like he was already rich and invite whom he liked.
‘Come in, come in, what can we do for you?’ he said, breezily. ‘Just looking? Anything in mind? Or do you just want to browse?’
He turned his back on the stranger and moved away to the office area at the far end of the showroom, indicating that he would leave the man alone if that was what he wanted. Always better not to pressure people in the early stages; it made them more forthcoming.
‘I was looking for Frank Shearer,’ the man said.
Frank froze in his tracks. These were dreaded words. He did not like the idea of anyone looking for him, because those who had done so in the past had been debt collectors, tracking him down through his chain of employments in pursuit of unpaid rent, the credit card bills not quite resolved, the one time alimony, until she responded to threats, recovered her wits and never asked him any more; the expenses claimed when he had worked for a firm who had been vicious in pursuit of them, and on one occasion, a large man sent to locate a company car he had failed to return. He shook his head, racking his brain to think of anything still outstanding, but he had been clean of all that for a year in a job where the scope for the minor form of cheating he favoured was absolutely nil. All that was in the past, but still he froze, until he remembered that it was only a sense of déjà vu, because he was a man of substance now. Or almost. He turned, smiling.
‘That’s me. What can I do you for? Nothing personal, I hope.’
The man smiled back, keeping his hands in the pocket of his coat. It was a pleasant, boyish smile which bore no resemblance to any debt collector Frank had ever encountered, but still it put him at a disadvantage, somehow. His own smile was a legend in the business, famous for catching the halfway-there buyer and freezing him in the headlamps like a cat on a dark road, also famous with women who rued the day Frank Shearer made them laugh before really showing his teeth.
‘It was, actually. Personal, I mean, but it can wait. Lovely motors. Don’t suppose you’ve got anything cheap.’
He threw back his head and roared with laughter. Frank couldn’t see what was so funny, but in the silence of the place it was strangely infectious and he found himself giggling.
‘Don’t do cheap. Don’t even do halfway cheap. Have a look anyway, make yourself at home. You won’t be the first to turn up on a bike looking for something a bit better, so dream on. They’re all yours for five minutes.’
The nervousness was gone. Here was a fellow with the story of his life written all over him. Another chancer, surely, still in the league he was about to leave. He, Frank, could afford to be generous and was on his way to make the beggar a cup of tea, advise him, maybe, that the coat was a giveaway, until he stopped in his tracks and remembered that word, ‘personal’. Oh dear. On his way to the back room cupboard which was otherwise known as his office, he let his leather-soled shoes sound noisy on the faux-wood floor, spun on his heel and came back.
‘So what’s personal?’
The man shrugged, nicely. ‘Your sister,’ he said. ‘Your divine and lovely sister. I came to offer my commiserations on her untimely death. So sad. She was my greatest friend. My name’s Rick, Rick Boyd.’
Frank had a feather duster in his hand, and he let it drop on the floor with a small clatter, stopped, picked it up with a flourish and waved it playfully. He’d have liked to have stuck it down the bloke’s throat, for a moment. Shocks like this he did not need. Made him say what he meant. He shook his head.
‘Sorry? I didn’t know my sis had greatest friends. Or any friends. Unless faggots, and I don’t see you as one of those. No disrespect intended, not that you can tell.’
The man advanced towards him and it was all he could do not to run away, but he did not, until his hand was grasped in the biggest paw he had ever felt, and he was gazing into Rick Boyd’s eyes and watching those eyes fill with tears. Then the handshake turned itself into a hug that left him paralysed, as if someone had thrown a blanket over him in such a way it was impossible to shrug free. They detached, quickly and simultaneously, with the imprint of Rick’s hand, removed from the small of his back, now burning a hole in the elbow of Frank’s suit. At least he had not been required to kiss.
‘Yeah, well,’ Frank muttered. ‘Thanks a lot. She was a great lady.’
‘Come off it, Frank, she was the biggest bitch unhung. Mind you, there’s always competition for a title like that.’
They stood, staring at one another, until a grin passed first over Rick’s handsome face and then over Frank’s.