‘Good. Daisy’s cooked enough bacon and eggs to feed the five thousand, and I’m damned if I’m going to eat it on my own. I’ve too much respect for my cholesterol levels. Your clothes are in the laundry room, so you can come down in the robe . . . and don’t forget your wallet. You owe me a hundred quid from last night – fifty for Rashid’s blood and fifty for vomiting down my back – plus an extra fiver to Daisy for the breakfast.’
He followed her on to the landing. ‘What about paying for the bed?’
‘You get one night free, but if you make a habit of falling sick on the premises it’ll cost you thirty quid every time you use it. No cheques.’ She set off down the stairs.
It was on the tip of Acland’s tongue to say he had no intention of ever returning to her pub. ‘It was a one-off,’ he told her instead. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘We’ll see. You haven’t tried Daisy’s breakfast yet.’
*
Daisy was the complete antithesis to Jackson – a warm, friendly, curvaceous blonde who looked ten years younger than her partner. She was also quite uninterested in money. When Acland tried to pay for his food, she laughed and told him not to be so silly. ‘If you hadn’t eaten it, Jackson would. She’s the resident dustbin.’ Jackson had no such qualms. ‘Where’s my hundred?’ she asked, washing down a mouthful of fried bread with a huge swallow of tea. ‘Daisy’s a pinko liberal. She thinks profit’s a dirty word and all criminals come from broken homes.’ She held out her palm. ‘I expect people to pay their dues.’ ‘You gave me a choice,’ Acland reminded her mildly. ‘Pay up or clean.’ ‘Too late. Daisy did the business last night. Blood and puke stains are the devil to get out once they’ve soaked in.’ Her partner frowned, as if she were about to contradict, but Jackson spoke again before she had the chance. ‘You’re lucky I’m not charging you for a new vest. It’ll need ten washes at least to get rid of the lager you spewed down my back.’ Acland counted off five twenties and handed them over with the fiver that Daisy had refused. Jackson took the lot and twisted in her chair to put it in the drawer of a unit behind her. He had a brief glimpse of a smaller stack, topped by a ten-pound note, before she closed the drawer again. ‘Mansoor’s contribution,’ she said, catching his eye as she turned back. ‘Not a bad night, all in all.’ He felt a sudden dislike for her, or perhaps he’d disliked her all along and it was distrust that now set his teeth on edge. She was an ugly woman – gross and greedy – and she clearly enjoyed bullying anyone who was at a disadvantage. He wondered briefly
about Daisy’s role in the relationship. Was she Jackson’s obedient slave? A piece of eye-candy to be discarded when someone prettier came along? Was she there out of love? Necessity? Was it an equal partnership? He watched her butter some toast for Jackson and realized he didn’t care. Revulsion against the whole set-up had him scraping his chair legs across the floor and standing up.
‘I need my clothes,’ he said brusquely. ‘If you point me in the right direction, I’ll get them myself.’
Surprised by his tone, Daisy gave a doubtful smile. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine . . . but I need to go now. I’m late.’
‘OK.’ She pointed to a door behind her. ‘Through there, first room on the right and you’ll find your stuff on the ironing board. When you’ve changed, continue down the corridor and you’ll find an exit on to Murray Street at the end. Can you find your way from there?’
Acland nodded.
‘Just make sure you leave my bathrobe behind,’ said Jackson, taking another piece of toast and sticking a buttery knife into the marmalade. ‘It cost me a fortune.’
He took a deep breath and addressed Daisy. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘Clearing up after me . . . breakfast . . . washing my clothes.’
Daisy smiled slightly. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything Jackson says, you know. She bends the truth to suit herself.’
The non sequitur confused him. ‘I don’t understand.’
Jackson jumped in again before the other woman could answer. ‘The robe cost two quid from an Oxfam shop,’ she told him, ‘but that doesn’t mean you can take it.’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Acland said stiffly, untying the belt and shrugging out of it. ‘Here.’ He draped it over the back of his chair. ‘I wouldn’t want you accusing me of theft after I’ve gone.’
Her gaze travelled with amusement from his underpants to his socks and shoes. ‘You jump to too many conclusions, my friend, and none of them reflect well on you. Being one-eyed doesn’t make a man blind or stupid – or shouldn’t – although in your case I’m beginning to wonder. You can come back when you’ve learned some tolerance . . . but not before.’
‘It won’t happen,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘I can’t bloody well afford it.’
‘Of course you can,’ she said comfortably. ‘Daisy offers a ten per cent discount to anyone who stays the week.’
Eight
DEPRIVED OF MOST of his cash by Jackson, Acland stopped at an ATM on the way to the tube station. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open to retrieve his Switch, but as soon as he thumbed the plastic from its slot, he noticed that Robert Willis’s business card was in the wrong place. It should have been tucked behind the American Express but now it was where the Switch had been.
He had a mental picture of Jackson going through his wallet, looking for someone to phone, and he knew she’d have found a psychiatrist irresistible. What had Willis told her? What had she told Willis? ‘Your patient’s showing psychopathic tendencies, Doctor.’ ‘Did you warn him that injuries to the head can inhibit moral sense?’ ‘Did you know he was dysfunctional when you gave him the all clear?’
Acland wondered why he’d kept Willis’s card, except that it was a link, however tenuous, with a time when he was still in the army. Perhaps, too, he had hoped to leave an upbeat message one day that everything had worked out fine, as if somewhere in his subconscious the psychiatrist’s good opinion mattered to him. Instead, Willis now knew that every gloomy prediction he’d made had come true. Acland was a loner. He was suspicious to the point of paranoia. And the recurring pains in his head were making him unstable.
Someone shifted impatiently in the rapidly building queue behind him and he went through the process of inserting the card and tapping in his PIN. He pictured Willis phoning his parents, or giving their number to Jackson, and a sweat of humiliation broke out in the small of his back. Did they know their son had run amok in a London pub? Christ!
He felt a prod in his back. ‘Are you planning on taking that money, son, or are you just gonna look at it?’
Acland drew in a breath through his nose and resisted the impulse to round on the man and punch him in the face. With a muttered apology, he tugged the wad of twenties out of the ATM’s metal grip, stuffed them into his wallet and turned away.
Another prod. ‘You’ve forgotten your card.’
It might have evolved into a rerun of the previous evening if the creaky voice hadn’t so clearly belonged to an old man. Nevertheless, Acland swung round and grabbed an arthritic finger before it could jab him again. ‘Don’t do that,’ he grated, staring into a pair of rheumy eyes.
Indignantly, the eighty-something wrestled himself free. ‘I was trying to do you a favour, mate, but go ahead . . . leave the card. Do you think I care if you’re robbed of all your savings?’
‘I don’t like people touching me.’
The pensioner wasn’t easily intimidated. ‘Then stick a sign on your back. There’s not many of us gonna realize you’re a bad-tempered bastard if we’re standing behind you. A man’s gotta see your face for that.’
Acland took up a position across the road in the shadow of a plane tree. He was prepared for a long wait – even welcomed a period of calm in the hope his anger might dissipate – but, in the event, he abandoned his stake-out after fifteen minutes. The old man had been right. His temper was evil. When the attack happened there was no sympathy in his heart, just an increase of frustrated fury. Now what? he thought in unfeeling calculation. Now what?