Plan A was to persuade Frank Shearer to part with a large sum of money to eradicate all traces of Marianne Shearer’s mythical child. Such an invention. Plan B, so outrageous he had hardly contemplated it up until now, was to harness Frank, to do something he wanted done. He was shaking his head at the very idea. Frank took the gesture for something indicating compassion and he was weeping again. His eyes were like pissholes in the snow; he looked as bad as any weeping woman, although in Frank’s case supplication did not move Rick to hurt him, the way it did with a silly bitch.
‘Start from the top,’ he said soothingly. ‘You were coming here, to meet me for a drink and a chat, where the booze is cheaper than bloody Mayfair and you went through Lincoln’s Inn Fields? Past nice Mr Noble’s. Were you going to go in?’
‘No, Rick, honest I wasn’t.’
‘Told you, Frank, you can’t trust that bloke. I said we’d go together, ask him what he was up to. You can’t believe him when he says he doesn’t know where anything is. Where your lovely sister’s hidden her stuff. He knows more than he says. Didn’t you trust me? You can’t tell him what we know. You’ll get nothing. Why did you go by his office?’
‘It was on the way. I did think maybe I should ask him something. No, I didn’t, it was just because it was on the way.’
An expression of fear on his face, not wanting to admit that yes, he did want to talk to T. Noble. Rick decided to let that one go.
‘Anyway, I stopped outside. Other side of the railings, looking up. That’s where I went first, to hear about my “good fortune”. That’s what Thomas Noble called it. I stood inside those railings, looking up. Newspaper in my hands, thinking, yes, she’s dead. I wanted to remember what it felt like, so I did it again, and then I saw her.’
He blew his nose on a paper towel. Rick reached for another. Harsh, blue paper, no luxuries here.
‘The bitch. She was walking up and down. She was like I was, first, walking up and down and thinking about going in. Carrying a bag, pacing, thinking about it. Like she didn’t know whether she should or she shouldn’t. Then she couldn’t. I watched, and I thought, it’s got to be her. Hesitating like that, ’cos she knows. It’s her, I thought, that’s Marianne’s girl. Then she went up to ring the bell. Went up there to claim everything that’s mine. Mine. Only she didn’t. She came back in through the gate where I was standing, and I thought, you bitch. Its you. You’re the bitch who wants to take it all away.’
Rick dabbed at the mark on Frank’s red face, threw away the paper towel. There were plenty of those for the price of a pint. Too early in the evening yet for this place to stink of misdirected pee. Frank had a penis the size of a stub and managed to pee like a horse. Possibly the only time the bloody thing grew. Rick was well hung, better than a donkey, but he could keep his own pee pees inside for hours and hours. The result of long hours of surveillance, he’d told Frank, and Frank, bless him, believed.
‘OK, Frank. So you thought she was the long-lost daughter who’d read a newspaper and come to claim. Bollocks, old son. With respect. Why wasn’t she just a bird, wandering up and down, early for something? Going out with some bloke in there, been stood up, whatever? What made you think she was anything to do with anything? What made you see red and hit her?’
‘It was the way she walked,’ Frank said. ‘She looked like she owned the fucking world. Like Marianne did. I knew it was her. I thought, that’s the bitch who thinks she’s going to inherit. It was the way she looked. She was hanging around outside there, like she didn’t know whether she should go in or not. I’d seen Thomas, looking out of the window, like he was waiting for someone. Then he went away and then she came. I thought, you’re coming to claim. You’re coming to claim. And then she seemed to know I was there. She turned round and came straight towards me. Like she was going to tell me to fuck off. Like women do. I lost it.’
Rick Boyd smiled. Don’t tell the man that you had never quite let him out of your sight in three days. That you did not trust him to make a meeting in a cosy pub deliberately chosen for being out of his territory and closer to your own. Suggested also because its persuasively dark interior and proximity to the lowering buildings of the Law Courts made it an ideal place to sit Frank Shearer down again and feed his growing paranoia. Don’t tell him how you yourself had stood well back and watched the man make a complete ass of himself in a full scale explosion of stupid violence. The paranoia had already taken hold. Made him make connections where there were none. Don’t say, look mate, if you’re going to hurt someone, make sure it hurts bad and make sure it makes you happy. No point hurting anyone unless you enjoy it. Even better if they enjoy it too. Even less point if you come off worse. What a fucking idiot Frank Shearer was, but a rich, delusional idiot, sublimely suggestible and with very useful propensities if used as a weapon. He could certainly pack a punch if only he could aim right. A heat-seeking missile, fuelled by a serious hatred of women. Rick could take a bet that this wasn’t the first time Frank had had his face scratched. Probably couldn’t get it up, blamed everything on them, although the way Frank told it, they were all gagging for him. Or they would be, when he was rich.
‘The bitch,’ Rick said. ‘What a bitch. How old was she, would you say, Frank?’
‘I don’t know. Not a kid, a young laydeee.’
He spat the last word. Lady Muck. He still smelt, slightly; still belligerent from the drink at lunchtime. Better cut this down, Rick thought; otherwise he’ll lose the job, and don’t want that, not yet. Got to get him to pledge me at least ten thousand to find this daughter or son and get rid. He’s got to believe I can do that. Or believe he can. Or I can point him in the direction he’s already taken. Use him to get that bitch. Oh shit, I can’t believe this. Too good to be true, what else can I get him to do? His voice was soothing.
‘Only, if she did happen to be Marianne’s bastard, she wouldn’t be that young, would she? Because Marianne would have been a kid herself when she had it. So it’s got to be thirty, I reckon. Plenty of boys and girls of that age knocking around, pacing up and down, whatever. So why the fuck did you leap to the amazing conclusion that this was It? Why was this one a bigger threat than any other bitch?’
‘It was the way she walked,’ Frank said stubbornly, sensing criticism and ready to cry again. ‘And because she was there.’ He was snivelling now. ‘And ’cos she came straight for me.’
Rick wanted a drink, very badly. Patted Frank down like a good old friend who could never doubt him.
‘We’ll check it out, Frank. Told you I’ve got all the contacts. I’m nearly there. Never mind. I reckon she deserved a slapping, whoever she was. We’ll find her. We’ll sort her out.’