AJ. Quietly. I didn’t want to be a loser.
MS. You didn’t want to lose him. You never won a single prize for anything, did you, Angel? Then you got Rick. A man your parents liked, which was more than your sister ever had. A real win, wasn’t it? You couldn’t bear to let him go.
A day of rest. It was dark by the time he finished reading.
CHAPTER NINE
The best of friends, the very best. The day went quick when you had a good-looking mate who understood you. Mates, muckers, something Frank had missed ever since he had been not quite the dimmest boy in school in the Antipodes, but almost. ‘Not academic’, was the way they put it. Dim, but OK enough at sport, although everyone pretended he only cheated for fun, instead of from a perverse instinct just to do it, because he could have won under his own steam without taking short cuts. Always wanted to be a team player; never quite made it and being a short-fused bullyboy with a tendency to hit anyone smaller did not help. Not his fault, always someone else’s. And now, as he told his new best friend, Rick Boyd, he was really, really going to win because of the sister who had always done better and always despised him. What kind of win do you call that, Rick?
Rick shook his head and patted Frank on the arm.
‘A win’s a win, Frank, however it happens. She owes it to you, you know? Just be happy.’
‘She wasn’t so bad, was she?’
Rick shook his head, seriously puzzled. The third bottle was going down nicely. No, not a pub, Rick insisted. Be there, I’ll have champagne on ice, because I’m so sorry I upset you. That posh place round the corner where all the tarts go. Something to look at. They had the same vocabulary when it came to the other sex; they were not girls or women if they were shaggable, they were called tarts. If they were preoccupied, they were called tarts; if they were dressed up or down they were called tarts and if they were over forty they weren’t called anything.
‘I don’t know,’ Rick said. ‘Was she that bad? I mean, I spent hours with her, you do when you’re on trial. Hours, days, even. And she did everything right by me, believe me, she was very, very good, and I’m not kidding you when I tell you we were close. Wrote everything down, ever so careful. She did well by me, she showed them all up as liars and framers and they had to cave in, finally, because I was innocent and she believed me and I’ve got to be grateful for that, because she really did believe me. She told me she believed every single client she’d ever got off and that’s what worked, her belief. But it was after, when I thought we were friends and it turns out we weren’t. I ask her to come out and have a drink with me, she doesn’t return the call. I write to her where she works, she doesn’t reply. I write to her again saying look, Marianne, I understand, but can you please send me on all those notes you took, all that stuff you recorded with me about everything? And she never did, even though I wrote to her again and said, it is mine, you know, and isn’t part of defending me giving it back so I know I can’t be framed again?’
He prodded Frank’s arm, affectionately.
‘Once you’ve been an informant, see, and you know how they operate, they’ll always be out for you, the cops, which is why I want my stuff back, but never mind about that. It was the way she turned her back on me, not quite finishing the job, like I had some disease or something. Made me feel smaller than this.’
He held his first finger and thumb a fraction of space apart, close to Frank’s face. Frank’s eyes were slightly blurred, but he nodded and a bit of the old anger resurfaced. Marianne always made him feel so weak. He had the feeling, nudging at something in the back of his skull, that he might have talked too much, but what the hell, this guy was talking back with nothing to hide. You had to trust a bloke who told you he’d been charged with murder.
‘Shall I tell you what really pissed me off, Frank? Well, I shouldn’t really, but I shall. She got the cops on me, well, to be honest, I don’t know if it was her or them. Only one call, but the day after she died they came round and asked did I know anything about it? Me? I say, me? I’m getting my life together, selling space like you sell cars, doing very nicely thank you, starting over, when this lot are at the door. Even though there’s no question and no reason why there ever should be, about me; I was at work all night and first thing I ever knew about her being dead was opening up the paper in the morning. And I thought was that you, Marianne, my darling, who doesn’t want to know me? Was the last thing you did to set the bastard cops on me, coming round and saying could you shed any light on this tragedy? All mealy-mouthed, they hated her more than anyone. They were there first thing in the morning. I thought it must be her, fingering me, somehow, but she had no malice in her really, did she? She wouldn’t do that.’
Frank Shearer was not following entirely. The world was a blur, but Rick had sure as hell brought luck in his wake. He had sold two cars, just like that. It could take weeks or hours, and it had taken what felt like minutes, because he simply didn’t care.
‘No. No, she wouldn’t. And I don’t know where she kept stuff, didn’t know where she lived. She never came to see me. Never deigned to stoop. Never asked me to anything. Never even sent me a customer.’
His hand wavered towards his glass. A line of coke would do it, Rick thought, but he’s not the type. One more round. Frank Shearer was expensive enough so far, with alcohol his only oblivion-making, confession-inducing substance of choice. Next time, Rick would find a more regular, darker, more atmospheric and cheaper place to work the magic. Get him nearer Thomas Noble. Frank’s memories swam to the surface.
‘She did it to me, once. Set the police on me, once, back in NZ. The cow.’
They drank to that. The last of the day, with Frank knowing he had to turn home to his own little hole in Willesden and Rick knowing something similar, although having drunk half as much.
‘I’m sure she had a bloke,’ Frank said. ‘She must’ve done, even looking like she did. We used to call her Frog. Small and jumpy, know what I mean? And, oh boy, did she love to dress up when she was a girl. She had enough clothes to sink a ship, tons of stuff, she dressed up out of the movies and she never looked right. She clocked the boys all the time, I remember, even though they didn’t have much time for her. Always the wrong clothes.’
Giggles, sniggers.
‘Did you ever see her with the white wig they wear in court? Imagine that face with a wig on top, it was a picture, Frank, I tell you. Miss Muppet, frog face in the wig, scared the hell out of them all. Good body on her though, at her age.’
They sat back and watched the women lined up at the bar. Businesswomen, saleswomen, all laughing. All tarts. Next time, somewhere dark, without the distraction. Somewhere in Rick’s own territory, anywhere near the Old Bailey.
‘I think you might be right about that, Frank, about her having a bloke. You can always tell. She’d sometimes look at her watch at four thirty in the afternoon; that’s the time to meet your married man, isn’t it? On his way home from work. Good luck to her. Why not?’
Glasses were raised. A happy chink, a pause and a grin at one another before they looked towards the bar, thinking of happier times and better times to come. Rick Boyd picked up his glass and sipped, delicately, choosing the right moment.
‘Did she ever tell you about her having a baby, Frank?’
‘What?’
‘About her having a baby, once.’
‘No.’
‘Like when she was nineteen or twenty.’
Frank put down his own glass clumsily, spilling a bit, leaving it still half full, clutching the base of the glass with his hands around it.