‘I can’t shut up shop, Rick, honest I can’t.’
‘I know that, Frank, really I do. Just wanted to talk to you, you know? We got such a lot in common. Mind if I look at these cars? You make the tea. Look, mate, I’ve got something to tell you which might be of interest when it comes to your inheritance and all that, but I promise you, mate, there’s nothing I want in return. Just a bit of info, like where the hell did she keep her stuff?’
He was perched on the bonnet of a Mercedes, not splayed on it like some model at a car show, but like another kind of sweet, wild animal, resting for an elegant minute before flight. This one would not leave a scratch. He was a heavyweight delicacy, nothing clumsy about him. His claws were clipped and his hands were clean.
‘She got me off a murder charge, you see, quite rightly, too, since I didn’t do it, but we had lots of time together, if you see what I mean. She told me things I’d like to share with you. And, she promised to leave me papers that might get me out of a future hole, only she didn’t. I wondered if you had them? Nobody else has her mobile phone, her notes, her anything. Quite frankly, Frank, I could be a bit compromised without these notes and things, and I don’t like being in this position. It’s like waiting for someone to call in the debts, if you know what I mean. So if you can tell me where this stuff is, I mean the useless crap like Thomas Noble’s looking for all over town, I’d be ever so grateful. And, course, there’s the other side of the coin. Like another piece of news for you which could really bugger up this inheritance malarkey, but if you don’t want to know, I well understand. We can work on it together, OK? Women, eh? Aren’t they the limit? The way they worm themselves in and get you in the end. Can’t have them winning, can we?’
‘A murder charge?’ Frank said, ready to faint.
Marianne got people off murder charges, rape charges, theft charges, that was what she did and he’d read about it, but to meet one… well. Nothing scared Marianne, but he was a different matter. Frank could scare women, but men scared him.
‘Complete fiction, mate, don’t worry. I was a police informant at the time and it just got implicated, no worries, I can’t even swat flies, just got implicated. Did she ever talk about me?’
He had a soft but demanding voice and a face ready to laugh, and he had already said far more than he needed to say. It was making Frank think of what he regretted, such as never really talking to his sister since they were kids. He did have a pang of sentiment about a person who had bailed him out a few times and then left him all the yummy money, even if it was by mistake. A teeny-weeny niggle of regret for not having known her better.
‘We didn’t talk, Rick. We never did. You know.’
He went into the straight-talking mode he enforced with a customer, only this time he meant it and hoped it was obvious.
‘She wanted nothing to do with me, Rick. She’d have crossed the road if she’d seen me first, she really would. She might just stop by to give me a kick if I was down, and I have been down, I tell you. She thought I was a loser, which I’m not, and she didn’t want to know.’
Rick got off the bonnet of the car and stuck his hand in the pockets of the coat, nodding ‘yes’ with his head, and looking at his feet. Good shoes.
‘You too, Frank? You too? I knew her really well, and then she went and pissed on my head. Best friends, followed by total reject. Are you sure she didn’t mention me? Didn’t leave anything with you?’
‘Did she buggery. We did Christmas cards, like I was one of her customers. She didn’t even know where I lived. I never went to hers. I knew she’d died because I saw a photo.’
‘All of them bitches, aren’t they, Frank? The only thing that ever turns a man into a loser is a woman. They get you, every time.’
Frank’s head was reeling. This was a sudden intimacy, an onslaught on his sensitivities, making him truthful even as he backed away. His first instinct was right and this man was the bearer of bad news, another kind of debt collector. This was the only person he had ever met, apart from long-deceased parents and Thomas Noble, who had known his sister; it confused him and reminded him how she had never included him in her life, always wanted to avoid her baby brother, always shone the bright light of her success on his failures, had always been the irritating example of naked ambition made good. Only bitch he knew who had even made crime pay, made a fortune on the back of it. He recalled snippets of insults, like when he got engaged and she consented to meet the fiancée for a quick drink, leaving only enough time to tell the woman she was a fool to marry her brother and perhaps she should think twice about it if she wanted to keep her looks. The nerve, when it was he who needed that advice. Big sister, always looking down on him, even though she was so small she should have been looking up. Resentment swelled in him and whether he liked it or not, Rick Boyd was bringing it back, making him realise that whatever else she had intended, his sister had never meant to make him rich and might still, yet, take it away.
The darkness outside had lifted, revealing a watery winter sun in Berkeley Square and a day that had been slow to start now meaning business. Another person stood with his face pressed to the glass. The bright light inside seemed bleak and artificial, revealing too much. Frank Shearer wanted to pour out all his wounded feelings about his sister, and bearer of bad news or not, Rick Boyd seemed ready to share.
Boyd had moved from lounging on the Mercedes, stood with his back to Frank, looking out of the window. A woman in a red coat twirled by in shiny boots, looking as if she owned the world, not pausing to look sideways to see who might be looking at her.
‘Get a load of that,’ Rick murmured. ‘I wonder who’s paying for her?’
‘What do you want?’ Frank asked, humbly this time, wanting the man to go, and then wanting him to stay.
‘I wanted to buy you a drink, that’s all. Commiserate, chew the fat. Share memories. Maybe you can tell why she was the way she was with both of us. Frank, my man, I’m sorry, I’ve upset you. When do you get off work? I’m so sorry.’
Frank was crying. Couldn’t bloody help it.
‘I never saw her, you know? Never saw her in action. Never saw her winning. You know?’
‘Lets talk about it, Frank. I’ve got all the time in the world.’
Continuation of cross-examination of Angel Joyce by Marianne Shearer, QC
MS. Before you met my client, Mr Boyd, you didn’t have much experience of life, did you, Angel?
AJ. Not a lot. No.
MS. You were naive, then.
AJ. No, I don’t think so.
MS. You’d been a bit spoiled, hadn’t you Angel? Never forced to do anything you didn’t want?
AJ. I think I might have been, to be honest.
MS. And you were bored?
AJ. Yes – no. I just didn’t know what to do.
MS. Come on, Angel, you were bored out of your skull. Small seaside town, boring parents who spoiled you. A dad who would always give you a job in his office. What is it he does? Ah, runs a self-storage unit. Very exciting. Didn’t you used to daydream a bit?
AJ. I suppose I did.
MS. You were a failure, weren’t you Angel? A stay-at-home loser.
AJ. No. I kept trying…
MS. And failing, and running home? High spots visiting your sister in her squat in London? Or so you told my client, didn’t you? Not much glamour and sex in your family, was there, Angel?
AJ. No.
MS. Rick Boyd was a way out of failure, wasn’t he, Angel? Everyone wanted Rick. He turned you into a winner, didn’t he?